I had an interesting day today.  I woke up contemplating torture and quickly took it out of my mind.  My inner feeling was leading me to look at the violence.  I then went to a shopping centre and an old lady sat with me awaiting her husband.  I was reading an article on family/domestic violence and opened a discussion with her.  We spoke of the declining values in society, the young people on their phones disconnecting and the technology through which people define the world. She spoke of how she raised her children, never needed to yell at them just made putting toys away as a game.  We spoke of how we force children to do things and we don’t play to inspire patterns of change.

I then met her very handsome 90 year old husband who gave me a glimpse through his eyes of being a Pole during the Second World War and the fight against Germany.  He was very sick with Typhoid.  He spoke of a Russian Jew in Russian uniform who had a medical insignia on her collar.  She told him he was very sick and had him go to a Polish hospital.  He had to go on a train and not look sick then jump off at the point where Polish soldiers were.  They saw him and noted he was sick.  He said his temperature went right up, had it gone one more notch he was dead.  Yet in the morning he work up and stated ‘I am hungry’ apparently they all laughed.  We spoke of the Jewish and he said that they tend to take over places which in his view is why there has been opposition. They are strongly identified with their faith and were not able to assimilate other cultures and religions.  Of course not all Jewish people are like this but what he was trying to say was that their desire for autonomy created division when in other countries.  The theme that was running was division for me.  He spoke of being a soldier and the atrocities he witnessed where people were chopped up, raped and so on.  I cannot imagine the depth of this violence. I spoke of reading about genocide and that the hatred is seeking to destroy what is good. I see it as the person hating themselves projecting it onto the ‘other’ and destroying all goodness, as that is where their real pain is.  In contrast to good they see the evil, in themselves. Of course every person has thought negative hurtful and cruel thoughts, but what we feed we grow.  So the more violence we commit the more we hate ourselves.  I recall a US soldier saying of the war in Iraq, ‘when I killed the other I was killing a part of myself.’  This is truer than he knows I feel.  This Polish man had been in Siberia very cold.  I recall being in Leningrad as a clown and we went to a museum and were shown a black and white film of the bodies being taken by sleigh as so many Russians died of hunger.  He spoke to me of a friend of his, who he was a soldier with, died recently.  He was the last in his Polish Brigade.  He found out at his funeral he was Jewish.  He said he was the funniest guy made every one feel good (clown no less).  I liked that he found that. Then his wife told me about Muslims.  She herself was an immigrant. She explained how she felt the refugees were given too much.  Yet I explained to her that they didn’t ask to be given and many of them were poor. She questioned this.  I explained that their families gather the money and pay smugglers.  They are told that money grows on trees in the West.  Most are not educated and believe it is their only chance.  She saw them as cowards leaving their country, they should fight.  I said the Afghans had the Mongul invasion, the British, the Russians and now the US.  The average people were exhausted and tired of the fighting they left to have a life, they are the poorest country in the world.  She felt the governments should sort out their countries so they don’t leave.  I didn’t disagree with supporting the home country but what of war?  What then?  Are we fueling or de-escalating the violence in these countries?  In the BBC film below they speak to ISIS and if the testimonials are true, they went in believing their commanders, some for economic reasons, others for hatred and so on. I recall the last point – it is an endless stream, remove one another comes and so on, because you can’t kill hatred is the point.  Can you fight against the stream or can you understand why it is happening, what is the grievance?  Can we put resources in to teaching peace and conflict resolution?  In conflict resolution the parties are facilitated to communicate with the ‘enemy’, they learn to listen to the other side with interruption, they ask questions, they clarify issues, the are responsible for developing options and solutions.  In  conflict resolution there is no enemy only differences to be resolved.  We don’t hate the person we solve the problem. Yet we see many hating people but not going into the drivers of conflict.   There is a wise saying that like attracts like.  We are living in a sea of energy and we are connected even though we think we are separate.  How is it we can psychically think of someone and then they ring? Or we can intuitively know something before it happens.  There are deep connections between all of us.  So if a person is very fearful an attacker will sense it and often they are attacked, their energy field is full of fear and the powerless attacker feels the powerlessness in the other, in their seeking of power they intimidate the other so they can feel bigger, superior that is the fix they get from violence or control.  They may not consciously know they are doing this but it is sensed.  That is how people get caught in victim traps, they are too terrified to leave or they feel worthless.  So the abuse goes on.  The bully looks for the weakest person.  In truth there are no weak people, only beliefs that say they are weak, we all have power when we change our thoughts.  Most do not know how to consciously change their thoughts to create different outcomes.  I recall a woman abducted years ago, two men picked her up and were taking her to the forest to kill her.  Instead of sitting there terrified she started to ask them about their mothers and families.  The energy changed as they connected to the woman they love.  They started to like her and then turned around and dropped her off.  They didn’t kill her.  Love silently visited and it was not possible for them to hurt her, they joined with her when thinking of mother.  We can change any dynamic by looking for the good in another or finding a reason why they do what they do.  When we focus on the good it expands.  It is that deep.  I choose to love everyone, that doesn’t mean I condone violence, I don’t but I refuse to join in the negativity as I know it creates war on our planet.  So I am working on inner peace to change myself so I can change this world which is a mirror of me. When I no longer see war (within) then I know I am at peace.  Then my world is at peace.  That is how (energetically) it truly works.  All that is within us is projected outside us and the trick is we believe it is true.  Only love is real.  Always remember this, as it is true.  Love makes real your happy destiny.  As you heal the world heals.  Was it not Michael Jackson who said ‘heal the world’, well that is how we do it.  Make peace with all you hate.

Back to the story about the Afghans and Russians.  I told the old lady about Charlie Wilson’s War (refer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Wilson%27s_War.  This is a true story where a US Congressman Charlie Wilson (Texan) influenced by Joanne Herring (right wing Christian and member of Pakistan/American association) collaborated to bringing in funding to the tune of 1 billion to fund military equipment like ground to air missiles to shoot down the helicopters and hurt the Russians financially and emotionally.  Joanne’s war was against secularism (non religion), Charlie’s war was about defenceless Afghans fighting a US war with the Russians.  Interestingly, half this money came from the Saudi’s who mirrored Joanne Herring (wanting an Islamic state).  I wonder if all chose love what 1 billion would do if it was channelled into education and peace building.  When education was suggested as the Russians exited Afghanistan, the American’s in this defence committee were not interested, it appears war was more appealing.  Perhaps they were at war with peace, not very exciting.   Charlies concern was that the Afghans were fighting with Enfield rifles.  He saw the underdog.  Yet violence begets violence, I ask can it bring lasting peace?  They won the war but has the war ended for the Afghans? (not yet!).  Interestingly the US became another superpower to come and die in Afghanistan.  Perhaps it was Karma given the Islamic extremists were brought into Afghanistan by the CIA to fight the Russians and there were the seeds of extremism planted by a democratic country.   Can we be honest enough to see that we create outcomes based on beliefs and vested interests.  I feel to say it is true that the world is our mirror, the enemy is not out there, it is within.  Unquestioned thinking makes us believe it is out there but if we truly question we can see the very thing we don’t want, we have been or have the seeds within us.  Whenever we see with hatred, whenever we divide from others (discriminate), whenever we treat people unequally, when we bully, when we beat up someone we demonstrate the very thing we say is not civilised or not us.  Can we be honest enough to look within.  Are we ready to heal?

One might say the bullying succeeds if he/she can overwhelm the enemy through fear and weapons.  This has been the modus operandi around the world.  Yet what brings real peace?  I spoke to this old lady about kind Afghan Muslims who were hospitable and if asked would give refuge to a person who had killed their family member.   I knew an Afghan mum who would hurt no-one and was deeply humble.  She was deeply sad and angry at the men in her country fighting.  She got cancer as she internalised her pain.  She lost her home and her children were scattered around the world as refugees.  She missed them and suffered as she felt fear for them.  She had no husband and was increasingly speaking bitterly about politics.  I think many other women could relate. Eventually she died of cancer.  Freed from this life of suffering.  I loved her.  I feel there needs to be a reconciliation where people get to know the ‘other’.  I had another conversation today whereby the issue of Muslims came up.  I am not bringing this up, it is coming to me interestingly enough.  The unquestioned belief is that they are all terrorists.  I recall seeing a man with Australian accent walking up an escalator on his mobile with his Islamic dress on.  My thoughts were positive and I noted his accent.  Yet no judgement went through my mind.  I just smiled at life actually.  Then I suddenly looked at the others on the escalator and there were looks of hatred.  I realised that this was Anzac day and the PM had made a point about some suspects picked up who were planning a bombing apparently.  I suddenly thought of Jane Elliot’s (Texan educator ) and her blue Eyed series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQAmdZvKf6M (check video) whereby racism is created through perceived beliefs of threat and division.  In this case an educator divided her class by eye colour based on the Nazi perception of superiority through blue eyes and blonde hair.  She divided her class and they started to exhibit signs of racism towards the other.  It is worth looking at.  Back on the escalator I was shocked to see ordinary young people projecting the unquestioned thought of terrorist onto this young man.  I saw man on phone wearing Islamic dress.  I saw him without a story.  Byron Katie teaches people to question their stories or negative beliefs http://thework.com/.  This is one of the most powerful teachings on the planet as all negativity and division is brought back to the person projecting it.  They end up seeing their beliefs are unquestioned and they bring up hatred or hurt or anger within them.  Anger is a cry for help.  Love extended is a sign of harmony.  So people are either in harmony (love) or discord (fear).  When fear is questioned is disappears and you laugh.  I would say to those Islamists who see the ‘other’ as infidel try to look with the eyes of love (Allah) and you will see an innocent human.  My friend in Afghanistan this morning is editing my book, I asked if I could get it printed, he said they burn the books.  I wrote back and mentioned Germany (remember Jane Elliot, Joseph Mengel of SS).  I am sure he was not lost on the irony in 2015.  Still we haven’t learned we are creating our enemies and you cannot control others. I would say that to everyone who looks at anyone as an enemy.  It is your darkness projecting outward.  When you are a clown you love everyone and that is what you create around you, love.  So we do indeed create our reality.  If you see enemies, are jealous, feel inadequate, insecure you will see a fearful world and you will divide or project that negativity onto someone else, until all negative thoughts are questioned we re-create the problem, our children learn from us and happiness and peace seem impossible dreams.  If you watch negative television that is exactly what you will believe.  When you believe it you will see it – as consciousness is powerful, collective consciousness literally changes the world. So be mindful of what you think.  It does indeed make a difference.

I don’t watch television as I am not interested in being brain washed by fear.  I am interested, as a clown, to see the good and the beautiful in the world. I see it all the time.  I’ve sat with the Khmer Rouge, I’ve been to jails, I have seen violence.  Yet I know in day to day life most people seek harmony and peace.  So I know we can be trained to hate and I am not interested in that.  I also know that people, who blindly follow anyone or media and do not consult their own experience are vulnerable to being caught up in the industry of hate.  Hate closes us down, it enables restrictions on liberties, it makes people hyper vigilent and if unaddressed, causes wars.  What you focus on expands.  What you resist persists what you look at disappears.  I am for understanding the core issues in conflict, understanding what drives people to commit violent acts, what drives societies to get on board with racism and division.  I am interested to learn why we do not care about another unless we see them as our own.  Why we cannot see a person in another country in exactly the same light.  It is because we identify with nationalism, religion, gender, archetypes.  We believe that is who we are.  What if we were to consider that we are much more than we think.  I say that literally.  What if, we were consciousness?  What if we at our essence were love?  What if when we connect to those positive feelings we feel true happiness.  I wonder what world we would see and create.  Whilst we stay in mindsets of perceived enemies and we believe we can destroy the enemy, we have not understood the true nature of peace.  Peace cannot destroy the other as a peaceful mind is one where no-one is hated, all are respected and love is under all conditions.  It takes great discipline to remember that we are One.  Yet still in our world we still are playing out the same old consciousness of division, we haven’t learned to resolve conflict, to stand in the other’s shoes, to share the wealth and as the indigenous say, to deeply listen.  I told the old woman that today, learn to deeply listen.  She said she never met a muslim.  I would say go and meet one.  I recall Gandhi in Calcutta during the riots the Hindu’s and Muslims were fighting and killing each other’s families in the streets, where once they had lived together in a diverse society.  The Hindu man came to Gandhi with wild eyes and said he had killed a Muslim child, smashed his head, his reason was that his son had been killed by Muslims.  Gandhi’s solution was to find a small boy around the same age, make sure he is Muslim and make sure he raise him as a Muslim.  The man was riddled with guilt, he was shocked at that.  Yet he cried at Gandhi’s bedside overwhelmed with grief.  What Gandhi was trying to teach him was tolerance for difference and forgiveness.  By taking a Muslim boy and raising him as his son he would learn to love him and to teach him Islam was to walk in the shoes of another.  He would never be able to kill a Muslim again.  The same would apply to Muslims who hate Hindu’s or American’s or Infidels.  The list goes on.  Until you become the other you cannot see the other.  When we make peace with the other, we make peace with ourselves.  That is why peace is important.  You cannot fight terrorism, you cannot kill hatred, you can only learn to understand what the fear and concern is about and address it with compassion.  You can find creative ways to ensure both win.  We can stay in a world of haves and have nots or we can start to regard each person as our family.  I learned that when travelling the World, I saw each of the 20 countries I visited as my own.  I saw every face (as a clown) as beautiful no matter who they were.  I saw the impact my love made on the others, they transformed.  I can see what hatred and violence creates.  It is all a ripple, the question is what sort of future do we want to create – one of peace or one of war.  I think of Eckhart Tolle who literally woke up.  He said when he learns of the war on terror he knows it is doomed to failure.  You cannot fight war, you can only make peace.  You cannot fight for good health, you can only find harmony and allow the dis-ease to heal.  When we all set an intention for peace it will come, the challenge is at what point are we ready to really look at violence.  Believe it or not, it is not by looking at the media, it will change when we see the violence in our negative divisive thoughts.  The lovely old lady I met today was a kind sweet woman who felt threatened by Muslims, she her self was a refugee after the second world war.  She did not see the other in herself.  She felt resentful.  She told me she was in remission from cancer.  I knew she hadn’t dealt with her war within that is why her body was out of harmony.  Always what we do to another we do to the self.  All dis-ease comes from imbalance.  Until we find true harmony we will continue to project our dis-ease onto the world.  In truth only love is real and no matter who you are I may not resonate with your actions, but I will not hate you.  I will always offer love as the way out of sanity.  Everyone does there best given their view of the world.  People operate out of their own level of consciousness.  If I was in their situation would I be the same?  probably.  So can I condemn.  No.  I can offer peace education as a way to teach children how to question their discrimination, how to transform hate into peace, how to laugh and have fun, how to cooperate with others who are different, I can teach love.  That is how I deal with terrorism. That is how I deal with bullying.   What we resist persists what we look at disappears.  I send you peace and love.

Let’s see how Professor Johan Galtung (father of Peace Research) regards the ISIS phenomenon.

ISIS: Negotiation, Not Bombing

ISIS: Negotiation, Not Bombing

EDITORIAL, 13 October 2014

Johan Galtung, 13 Oct 2014 – TRANSCEND Media Service

More senseless bombing of Muslims, more defeats for USA-West, more ISIS-type movements, more West-Islam polarization. Any way out?

“ISIS, Islamic State in Iraq-Syria, appeals to a Longing for the Caliphate” writes Farhang Johanpour in an IPS column. For the Ottoman Caliphate with the Sultan as Caliph–the Shadow of God on Earth–after the 1516-17 victories all over till the collapse of both Empire and Caliphate in 1922, at the hands of the allies England-France-Russia.

Imagine the collapse of the Vatican, not Catholic Christianity, at the hands of somebody, Protestant or Orthodox Christians, meaning Anglo-Americans or Russians, or Muslims. A center in this world for the transition to the next, headed by a Pope, the apostolic successor to The Holy Spirit, an emanation of God in Heaven. Imagine it gone.

And imagine that they who had brought about the collapse had a tendency to bomb, invade, conquer, dominate Catholic countries, one after the other, like after 2 Bush wars in Afghanistan-Iraq, 5 Obama wars in Pakistan-Yemen-Somalia-Libya-Syria, and “special operations”. Would we not predict [1] a longing for the Vatican, and [2] an extreme hatred of the perpetrators? Fortunately, it did not happen.

But it happened in the Middle East: leaving a trauma fueled by killing hundreds of thousands. The Sykes-Picot England-France agreement of 16 May 1916 led to the collapse, with their four well-known colonies, the less known promise of Istanbul to Russia(!), and the 1917 Balfour declaration offering parts of Arab lands as “national home for the Jewish people”. Johanpour quotes Churchill: “Selling one piece of real estate, not theirs, to two peoples at the same time”.

The Middle East colonies fought the West through military coups for independence; Kemal Atatürk was a model. The second liberation is militant Islam–Muslim Brotherhood, FIS-Federation Islamique de Salvation in Algeria, etc.–against military-secular dictatorships. The West prefers the military; order against history.

The longing cannot be stopped. ISIS is only one expression, and exceedingly brutal. But, a damage and destruction by Obama and allies will be followed by a dozen ISIS from 1.6 billion Muslims in 57 countries. A little military politicking today, some “training” here, fighting there, bombing all over, are only ripples on a groundswell.

This will end with a Sunni caliphate sooner or later. And, the lost caliphate they are longing for, had not Israel been awarded a “national home”. This is behind some of the US-West despair. Any solution?

The way out is cease-fire and negotiation. Under United Nations auspices, with full UN Security Council backing. To gain time, switch to a defensive military strategy, defending Baghdad, the Kurds, the Shia and others in Syria and Iraq. Problematic for the USA, so maybe some other members of the coalition can do better, leaving Baghdad to the USA. After all, the US embassy there must be very attractive as a Caliphate See.

The historical-cultural-political position of ISIS and its successors is strong; the West is weak, also economically. The West cannot offer withdrawal in return for anything as it has already officially withdrawn. The West, however, can offer reconciliation, both in the sense of clearing the past and opening the future. Known in USA as “apologism” a difficult policy to pursue. But the onus of Sykes-Picot is for once not on the USA, but on UK-France. Russia dropped out after the 1917 revolution, but revealed the plot.

Bombing, an atrocity, will lead to more ISIS atrocities. A conciliatory West might change that. An international commission could work on Sykes-Picot and its aftermath, and open the book with compensation on it. As a principle; the West cannot pay anyhow.

Above all, future cooperation. The West, and here USA enters, could make Israel return the West Bank, except for small cantons, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem as Palestinian capital–or else!–sparing the Arabs and the Israelis horrible long-lasting warfare.

This would be decency, sanity, rationality; the question is whether the West possesses these qualities. The prognosis is dim.

There is the Anglo-American self-image as infallible, a gift to humanity, a little rough at times civilizing the diehards, but not weak. If not an apology, at least they could wish their own policies in the region since, say, 1967, undone. No sign of that.

So much for the willingness. Does the West have the ability? Do they know how to reconcile? After Portugal and England conquering the East China-East Africa sea lane around 1500, ultimately establishing themselves in Macao and Hong Kong, after the First and Second Opium wars 1839-1860 in China, ending with Anglo-French forces burning the Imperial Palace in Beijing, did England use the “hand over” of Hong Kong for reflections on the past? Not a word from Prince Charles.

China could have flattened those two colonies–but did not. As Islam has retaliation among its values, the West may be in for a lot.

Slavery, colonialism, imperialism. My country, Norway, accused by Caribbean countries of complicity in slavery, is now joining; it is the fourth war since 2001. Yet the tiny opposition has no alternative.

Le Nouvel Observateur lists “groupes terroristes islamistes” in the world: Iraq-Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Libya, Algeria, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Indonesia, Philippines, Uzbekistan, and Chechnya. The groups, named, grew out of similar local circumstances. Imagine they increasingly share that longing for a caliphate; the Ottoman Empire covered much more than the Middle East, way into Africa and Asia. And more groups are coming. Invincible.

Imagine that Turkey itself shares that dream, maybe hoping to play a major role (the Prime Minister, Davutoglu, was in his past a superb academic, specialist on the Empire). Could that be the reason for Turkey not really joining, as it seems, this anti-ISIS crusade?

The West should be realistic, not “realist”. Switch to rationality.

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Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU. He is author of over 150 books on peace and related issues, including ‘50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives,’ published by the TRANSCEND University Press-TUP.

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