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“Goodbye Peace. Worldmoires Into A Peaceful Future”

Welcome to my worldmoires – a word I have invented for the occasion. It means writing about my life in the perspective of global affairs and trends that have influenced my work and myself since I was born in the middle of the preceding century.

And the occasion? I’m approaching the 50th anniversary of my work as a peace, conflict and future researcher. The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF, that my wife Christina and I have established turned 35 on January 1, 2021. And I launched this writing project on January 13, 2021, marking my 70th birthday.

This is an online book – and the reasons are explained at the outset. And it is a book in-the-making that you are invited to follow – you get a note when a new chapter has been published, and you can comment on it. So, it’s highly interactive and flexible in the sense that new texts can be added as I continue into new ventures.

What is it about?

It’s about some aspects of where I came from and how I got to be who I am, but not about my private life. I will tell how I was influenced not by influencers but by people – teachers in particular – and by global developments and how I came to stand where I stand on a series of them, including the West’s conspicuous decline and coming fall.

There will be quite a lot about my work as conflict analyst, mediator, commentator and visiting professor with observations from countries such as Yugoslavia – my third country with Denmark where I was born and Sweden where I live – Georgia, Japan, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Burundi, Iraq, Iran, Syria and China.

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The role of learning, research and the media – and how I have related to them – will be rolled out. As will my thinking about time, work, freedom and money.

Then there will be more free-floating essays on how I perceive some of the existential issues of our time – be it nuclear weapons, the role of violence in our culture and thinking, and the question mostly put in popular terms like “are we [sic] too stupid to survive”?

But no doom and gloom. There is more than enough of that.

I will focus on what I – with my particular vantage point, profession(s) and experience – think can become a better future for us all after the fall of the US Empire and the West has become one among equals.

I see a much better world as a possibility but I cannot estimate its probability.

What I know for sure is that we must think creatively and talk unconventionally about that better future and that it won’t come about unless we – the people – come together and also work for it.

Finally, since I’ve lived all my life with contemporary art and am an art photographer, expect quite a few excursions into that landscape too.

But do not expect it to be finished quickly. I continue with my work for peace and for art photography in almost the same tempo as usual.

I shall be very happy if you find it worth reading what is already there and perhaps also follow the process as the larger thing comes to life.

JO

Welcome to my official personal home. I'm a peace researcher and art photographer.

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