

Ing. Salih CAVKIC
Editor in Chief
by ORBUS.BE
info@orbus.be
www.orbus.be

No more
Paris nor Brussels!
Stop
terrorism!
We want to live in peace with all
our neighbors.
regardless of their religion, color and origin.
Therefore, we condemn any
kind of terrorism!
*****
Ne više Pariz ni Brisel!
Stop terorizam!
Mi želimo živjeti u miru sa svim našim
komšijama,
bez obzira koje su vjere, boje kože i porijekla.
Zato mi osuđujemo svaku vrstu terorizma!


Prof. dr. Murray Hunter
University Malaysia Perlis


Eva MAURINA
20
Years to Trade Economic Independence for Political Sovereignty -
Eva MAURINA


Aleš Debeljak
In
Defense of Cross-Fertilization: Europe and Its Identity
Contradictions - Aleš Debeljak
ALEŠ
DEBELJAK - ABECEDA DJETINJSTVA
ALEŠ DEBEJAK
- INTERVJU; PROSVJEDI, POEZIJA, DRŽAVA


Rattana Lao
Rattana Lao holds a doctorate in Comparative and International
Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and is
currently teaching in Bangkok.


Bakhtyar Aljaf
Director of Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) in Ljubljana,
Slovenia


Rakesh Krishnan Simha Géométrie variable of a love triangle – India, Russia and the US


Amna Whiston
Amna Whiston is a London-based writer specialising in moral philosophy. As a
PhD candidate at Reading University, UK, her main research interests
are in ethics, rationality, and moral psychology.


Eirini Patsea
Eirini Patsea is a Guest Editor in Modern Diplomacy, and
specialist in Cultural Diplomacy and Faith-based Mediation.


Belmir Selimovic
Can we trust the government to do the right thing, are they really
care about essential things such as environmental conditions and
education in our life?


Dubravko Lovrenović


Manal Saadi
Postgraduate researcher in International Relations and Diplomacy at
the Geneva-based UMEF University


doc.dr.Jasna Cosabic
professor of IT law
and EU law at Banja Luka College,
Bosnia and Herzegovina


Aleksandra Krstic
, studied in Belgrade (Political Science) and in Moscow
(Plekhanov’s IBS). Currently, a post-doctoral researcher at the Kent
University in Brussels (Intl. Relations). Specialist for the
MENA-Balkans frozen and controlled conflicts.
Contact: alex-alex@gmail.com


Dr.Swaleha Sindhi is
Assistant Professor in the Department
of Educational Administration, the Maharaja Sayajirao University of
Baroda, India. Decorated educational practitioner Dr. Sindhi is a
frequent columnist on related topics, too. She is the Vice President
of Indian Ocean Comparative Education Society (IOCES). Contact:
swalehasindhi@gmail.com


Barçın Yinanç
It is an Ankara-based
journalist and notable author.
She is engaged with the leading Turkish dailies and weeklies for
nearly three decades as a columnist, intervieweer and editor.
Her words are prolifically published and quoted in Turkish,
French an English.


By İLNUR ÇEVIK
Modified from the original: They killed 1
Saddam and created 1,000 others (Daily Sabah)


Aine O’Mahony
Aine O'Mahony has a bachelor in Law and Political Science at
the Catholic Institute of Paris and is currently a master's student
of Leiden University in the International Studies programme.Contact:
aine-claire.nini@hotmail.fr


Elodie Pichon
Elodie Pichon has a
bachelor in Law and Political Science at the Catholic Institute of
Paris and is currently doing a MA in Geopolitics, territory and
Security at King's College London. Contact :
elodie.pichon@gmail.com

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EU Reloaded?
by Dr. Peter Jankowitsch

Revisiting and rethinking Europe recently on these very pages, prof.
Anis Bajrektarevic asked: “… is the EU the world’s last cosmopolitan
enjoying its postmodern holiday from history?
Is that possibly the lost Atlántida or mythical Arcadia– a Hegelian
end of history world? ... a post-Hobbesian (yet, not quite a
Kantian) world, in which the letzte Mensch expelled
Übermensch?”
Yet another take on the most critical EU debate comes from Austria,
this time from the long time insider into the rocky European
policy-making.
* * * *
The narrow result of the UK referendum to leave the European Union
was not the catalyst for the increasingly pressing question of
whether the concept and practice of European integration, which has
defined the course of European history since the end of the Second
World War as well as enabled prosperity, security and the
advancement of the continent, are now exhausted and should be
replaced by other models.
Ever since France and the Netherlands voted against a European
constitution, there have been more and more signs of Europe becoming
less appealing in its current form. This is also evident in the
growing number of election victories of ‘Eurosceptics’ to
‘anti-European’ parties within the founding states of the Union.
Some of these factions have already managed to gain seats in the
European Parliament. Public support of the EU, regularly recorded by
the Eurobarometer, is falling in nearly all 28 Member States (MS).
It has only remained high in a few candidate countries such as those
of the Western Balkans.
Despite all of its undeniable progress in the field of all-civic
participation, in strengthening the European Parliament or the
increased application of the subsidiarity principle, the Lisbon
Treaty - this last attempt to create a Europe based on firm ideals,
did not enable a true fresh start nor fuel enthusiasm or a positive
attitude of citizenry towards the European project.
On the contrary, Europe’s response to major crises in the last few
years, ranging from the world economic crisis, the Euro crisis to
the current refuge crisis that is still unsolved, is often regarded
as hesitant and has visibly shaken the citizens’ confidence in the
EU edifice an its ability to control the fate of Europe.
The most common response by some member states was to return to
policies that only serve national interest and disregard the
European standards and rules of European solidarity agreed upon.
This has contributed to the EU institutions such as the EU
Commission and the EU Parliament losing more of their authority and
ability to act.
It would probably be too simple and superficial to just regard
personal factors, and in some respects an undeniably weak leadership
at an EU and national level, as the prime or single cause of such a
trend. Starry names, visionary personalities such as Jacques
Delores, Sicco Manshold or Sir Leon Brittan no longer exist in the
European theatre. Even the leadership of the German-French axis,
which was predominant during the era of Conrad Adenauer and Charles
De Gaulle; or Kohl and Mitterand for that matter, has grown weaker ,
although the collaboration of this duo has remained essential to the
present day.
Yet the reasons why European ideals are fading away and the desire
for unlimited national autonomy has been revived have to be analysed
very carefully without reducing them to the obvious factors – for
example, the growing (alienation of) Brussels bureaucracy or their
unrealistic decrees. This also includes the so called democracy
deficit; a not uncommon phenomenon of many EU citizens feeling
powerless at a national or supranational level, no longer expecting
political processes to solve their daily problems – especially those
administered by Brussels. This residual feeling intensifies when
populist forces, such as was the case during the Brexit campaign in
the UK, blame Europe for old and new, related and unrelated,
problems.
However, it is debatable whether the uneasiness many European
citizens feel towards national and EU/European policies could be
overcome simply by strengthening national sovereignty ab dismantling
the EU (or even pan-European) bodies and institutions. Many of the
causes have an authentic national origin, such as a fear of the
future due to an increase in social inequality, environmental
degradation or threats to public safety and security, regardless of
whether they are real or only felt. Slogans such as ‘More Europe’ or
‘Less Europe’ are, therefore, not suitable for getting to the bottom
of the causes.
In fact, a sensible combination of national and the EU/European
measures is needed to be able to restore the confidence of European
citizens in their joint project – for overall prosperity and safety.
National and supranational measures are also necessary to secure our
common social model, the European welfare state. Only a strong
EU/Europe can protect its citizens from the consequences of
unrestrained globalisation. Hence, MS (Member States) have to ensure
social justice within their own borders. Such a deliverables have no
alternative.
The call for more autonomy and civic participation requires not only
national but also all-European action. Democratic deficit have not
only been unveiled in the European Union, whose institutions
certainly need a surge of democratic ideas and practices, but also
in many of the EU 28 MS (Member States). The limitations of a dismal
representative democracy come to light when they only partially and
incompletely portray the will of the citizenry.
If it is possible to adopt these kind of measures in a targeted
manner and fulfil the true needs and concerns of the citizens
accordingly, then it is also possible and manageable to continue the
promised work of the EU integration in the best interest of European
family of peoples. Of course, it will have to take national
particularities, diversities, which make up the firm characteristics
of Europe, into account to a much higher extent then it is the case
now. A reinvigorated EU will also have to exist under the banner of
this diversity and it can remain the Union of the four fundamental
freedoms and all other civilizational accomplishments, which defined
its historical cause and will define the lives of its citizens
today.
From the German original translated by the
Cercle Diplomatique Austria team.

Dr. Peter Jankowitsch, ambassador
Secretary General of the Austro–French centre;
joined the Austrian Foreign Ministry in 1957, was a close
collaborator of the legendary leader of the Austrian II Republic,
Bruno Kreisky for decades; country’s Foreign Minister in 1980s and
the State Secretary for the EU Integration in 1990s.
September 26, 2016
DMCA Abuse: How corporations
are using US copyright law to harass and silence individuals
Murray Hunter
The
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was unanimously passed by
the United States Senate on 12th October 1998, and signed
into law by President Clinton on 28th October the same
year. The Act was put into law to interpret and enact two 1996 World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties which dealt with
copyright circumvention and providing Internet service providers
(ISP) and online service providers (OSP) safe harbour against
copyright liability, provided they meet specific requirements.
The DMCA criminalizes the production and
dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to
circumvent measures (commonly called digital rights management) that
control access to copyrighted works. Further, the DMCA also
criminalizes the act of circumventing any access control, even if
there is no actual infringement of the copyrighted material itself,
i.e., providing a mere link to a third site where suspected
copyright material exists is criminal.
The Act has extended the reach of US law beyond its
traditional geographical jurisdiction. Moreover, the Act has given
copyright right holders a “lethal weapon” to utilize
against parties who allegedly breach their claimed copyright. That
is, the ability to claim copyright breach directly against any
individual. Further, the Act enables copyright holders to force ISPs
and OSPs to take down any identified alleged infringing material
immediately from any internet site.
However the Act doesn’t give respondents any recourse
against a DMCA takedown notice before any material is taken down by
the ISPs and OSPs.
Through the DMCA takedown notice procedure a
copyright holder becomes a prosecuting judge. A copyright holder
need only serve a takedown notice on an ISP or OSP to take down any
third party’s material from the internet to have it instantly
removed.
The rules and procedures of this process are
prescribed under section 512 of the Act. ISPs and OSPs are given
immunity from prosecution from both the copyright holders and
respondents to takedown notices, if they strictly adhere to the
takedown and counter-takedown notice procedures prescribed in
Section 512.
This ‘safe harbor’ provision gives ISPs and OSPs
incentive to cooperate with copyright holders who are in the
majority corporations. Section 512 even exempts ISPs and OSPs from
‘good faith’ in the removal of any material, i.e., they may know
the takedown notice is flawed in some way, providing the
procedures are followed. In effect ISPs and OSPs become the agents
of the copyright holders and aren’t obliged to consider the
interests of their users, except through facilitating the
counter-takedown notice procedure.
As mentioned above, the material identified in any
takedown notice must be removed from the site identified. The
respondent can only respond to the copyright holder through issuing
a counter notice which identifies the person who put up the
material, submits to the jurisdiction of a US court, and subjects
the respondent to the laws of perjury in the response. It is the
responsibility of the ISP or OSP to pass on the counter notice to
the copyright holder and if legal action hasn’t been taken against
the respondent in the takedown notice within 10-14 days, the ISP/OSP
may reinstate the original material to their website.
The DMCA takedown notice procedure deems a respondent
of a takedown notice guilty. There is no provision for a hearing
from the respondent to either the purported copyright holder or ISP/OSP
before the material is removed. At a minimum any material subject to
a takedown notice cannot reappear for at least 14 days.
The takedown notice procedure is dreadfully biased
towards the purported copyright holder. Section 512 gives copyright
holders protection and power over respondents to takedown notices.
For example, unlike respondents who decide to file a counter notice,
the copyright holder issuing the takedown notice in the first place,
need not submit itself to the jurisdiction of the US legal system.
The issuer of a DMCA takedown notice may be, and is in many cases, a
foreign corporation with no intention to submit itself to the
jurisdiction of US law. The corporation can use the DMCA for
convenience to rid the internet of some material at its own whim,
where it is almost practically impossible by a respondent to make
legal claim for issuing a false takedown notice.
If a respondent of a DMCA takedown notice takes a
copyright holder to court, there is no guarantee that the issuer of
the notice will submit itself to US law, unless it is already a US
legal entity. Even within the US itself, some issuers of takedown
notices
have escaped jurisdiction of the US court system.
Sadly, US case law has tended to protect the issuers
of false takedown notices. In 2004, the decision in
Rossi V. the Motion Picture Association of America found
that the DMCA takedown notice issuer had to actually know their
claim was false and not merely lazy or mistaken for a respondent to
succeed in their claim against a party who issued a false takedown
notice.
Further, the issuer of a DMCA takedown notice bears
little responsibility for false notices. Although Section 512 (f)
makes the issuer of any false notice liable for damages, the cost,
time and effort to take a copyright holder to court for issuing a
false notice according to current case law in the United States
would most likely
only compensate the respondent for his or her legal costs in
direct relation to the takedown notice and minimal damages.
There is nothing within Section 512 that restrains
copyright holders from issuing DMCA takedown notices through the
principle of fair use. The legally enshrined principle of fair use
allows for the copying of small amounts of material for comment,
criticism, or parody. Such use can be done without the need to get
permission from the copyright holder. Section 1201 (c) states the
underlying substantive copyright infringement rights, remedies, and
defences, doesn’t allow the use of fair use for defence of a DMCA
takedown notice. Fair use is not exempted as a circumvention action
and has thus not exempted from criminality under DMCA.
This weakness in the DMCA has allowed for the
exponential growth of DMCA takedown notices since the Act became law
almost 18 years ago.
Twitter receives about 10,000 DMCA takedown notices
per month which has
grown 58% from the year before. Wordpress receives about
700-800 DMCA takedown notices per month,
up 55% from the year before. Google receives about
80,000 DMCA takedown notices per month, which has grown
also around 50% in volume from the previous year. If the fair use
provision was upheld in section 512, the number of takedown notices
would be far less and more manageable by ISPs and OSPs to handle.
Instead we are reaching a situation where free speech, expression,
and even creativity are being stifled by the DMCA.
Earlier this year Jennifer Urban and Brianna
Schofield from University of California, with Joe Karaganis of
Columbia University found in a 160 page in-depth study looking at
100 million notices, that
more than 32% of DMCA takedown notices were either flawed or had
characteristics which raised questions about their validity.
This equates to more than 35 million notices. This somewhat agrees
with Twitter’s own data indicating that
around 33% of notices it receives are ineffective.
Wordpress found
60% of the DMCA takedown notices it receives as being ineffective.
One very recent case that illustrates the above
issues and highlights several sinister aspects of DMCA abusers’
behaviour relates to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and
its Legal Director Howard Stupp. Howard Stupp is
well known for his vigilance in protecting IOC intellectual
property, and even made a
ban on the use of short GIFs on social media during the
recent Olympic Games.
Stupp instituted an automated system which
systematically searched the internet for key words. The system was
so sophisticated that winners’ names were added as key words to pick
out new postings during the games. However what was apparently
absent was any human interface to ensure that the system didn’t
mistakenly highlight postings that didn’t breach IOC copyright. As a
result in one such case, a DMCA takedown notice was sent to Twitter
claiming a posting had breached IOC copyright by showing a GIF of
the recent games, when in fact the Tweet was posted weeks before the
games and GIF was of another sporting event not under the
jurisdiction of the IOC.

The Tweet subject to an IOC DMCA takedown notice issues by Howard
Stupp

A partial screen shot of the DMCA takedown notice
issued by Howard Stupp
Like the example above, the use of automated systems
leads to questions about accuracy and fairness in due process of
copyright holders issuing DMCA takedown notices. Human interface is
required to ensure copyright holders exercise a duty of care.
Automated search systems have turned the DMCA takedown system into a
massive fishing expedition where individuals who breach copyright
may be caught along with a large group of innocent individuals.
In the case above, the recipient of the DMCA takedown
notice issued by the IOC attempted to contact the organization
through the email given in the takedown notice (The issuer of a DMCA
notice doesn’t have to state their address like the requirement for
respondents to do so) to point out their mistake, but this was to no
avail. Repeated emails were just left with silence.
The fact that the IOC refuses to enter into any
correspondence with respondents indicates the principle of ‘good
faith’ is not being adhered to.
The IOC, like many other corporations not registered
in the United States are difficult to actually locate and thus
beyond the jurisdiction of US law. This makes it extremely difficult
to take any legal action against parties who issue false DMCA
takedown notices. The DMCA takedown notice system is allowing people
like Howard Stupp to act without any duty of care and legal
responsibility. The IOC must be aware that some of its DMCA are
false through mistaken identification of content (i.e., no one has
checked the links the automated system has identified).
Organizations like the IOC will continue to issue
frivolous takedown notices in a contemptuous and arrogant manner,
and ISP/OSPs like Twitter will continue to support large
corporations against their own users because of the nature of the
current takedown and counter notice procedures in section 512. These
are all massive abuses of the system which must be corrected.
There are numerous other well reported abuses which
indicate the DMCA is being used by corporations for other motives
than seeking out copyright infringement. Warner Bros filed DMCA
takedown notices with Google as a tool to
takedown websites which would lead to possible infringing content,
rather than infringing content on websites as the DMCA specifies.
Sony has been
trying to obtain license fees on the fair use of their
copyrighted material. A web security firm used the DMCA takedown
system
to silence a vocal critic of its services in the guise of
copyright infringement. The London Sunday Times sent a DMCA takedown
notice
to eliminate a critical article written in The Intercept.
Some organizations have issued DMCA takedown
notices against bloggers just to find out their identity.
The DMCA takedown notice procedure is
cheaper to utilize against critics than using defamation laws,
which many corporations are taking advantage of.
People with a grudge use the DMCA takedown notice procedure
to attack and force suspension of their social media accounts.
The safe harbour provision of Section 512 makes the
ISP and OSP willing collaborators with organizations which use DMCA
takedown notices as a tool for other agenda that the Act was not
intended for.
DMCA
takedown notices only allege breaches of copyright infringement.
DMCA takedown notices do not prove cases of copyright infringement.
This is a denial of natural justice where the
takedown and counter notice procedure assumes guilt before
innocence, contrary to common law.
With the large number of DMCA takedown notices coming
in to ISP/OSPs, it is time consuming and costly for these
organizations to deal with each individual notice. They are doing
the work of copyright holders and bearing all the costs involved.
The unbalanced onuses placed upon the recipient in
filing a counter notice, and fear of the costs of defending any
potential action in a court of law is the probable reason why there
are very few counter notices. DMCA takedown notices, as can be seen
by the example above are intimidating to many people who receive
them. Further, liability is unbalanced and favours copyright
holders. Many corporations don’t fear suits as they aren’t within
the jurisdiction of a US court unlike the respondents who must
formally put themselves under US court jurisdiction in filing a
counter notice.
Large corporations like Sony, Disney, Comcast,
Viacom, and others used automated systems to issue DMCA takedown
notices which often misidentify material. This is an injustice upon
innocent parties who are at risk of having their social media
accounts closed if they receive three takedown notices under the
multiple offender provision of the DMCA.
The DMCA takedown notice procedure has harassed many
internet and social media users, silenced critics of corporations,
and disrupted people running blogs. Section 512 (f) is toothless in
restraining corporations using automated software and takedown
notices go on ‘fishing expeditions’ to seek out copyright
infringers. Innocent peoples’ rights are being violated and in some
cases damage done to them where no practical recourses exist to
remedy the injustice. The Howard Stupps of the corporations are free
to run their agendas disregarding the principles of ‘good faith’ and
fairness. They appear immune from responsibility for their reckless
actions.
Section 512 has failed to protect people from false
takedown notices and allowed the DMCA to be abused by corporations
for their own ends. The use of the DMCA to silence critics and
eliminate articles written by journalists in all probability if
challenged in a US court could even be found unconstitutional due to
its incongruence with the 1st Amendment that guarantees
freedom of speech and the press.
Let’s hope the US Copyright Office corrects these
shortfalls of the DMCA in its current review of the legislation and
considers the introduction of statutory damages and/or bonds to
decrease the issuing of false notices.
September 24, 2016
Italy and Egypt: from Regeni
to Libya, the difficult path towards normalization
Daniele Scalea
The
last, recent joint note of Italian and Egyptian attorneys on Giulio
Regeni's murder shows that a good degree of cooperation in the
investigation has been finally reached. Unfortunately that has
required various months during which Egyptian transparency wasn't so
high. Moreover, as the Italian attorney Pignatone has reminded, that
underway is not a joint but a mere Egyptian investigation, to whom
Italian investigators are only collaborating. So, the chances that
we will know one day who and why really killed Regeni are in the
hands of destiny and of Egyptian judiciary. For now, it appears
fallen at least the trail to the alleged gang of kidnappers killed
by the Egyptian police last March.
It is quite obvious that someone among the Egyptian apparatus has
tried to sabotage the investigation – too many false trails,
omissions and so on. That doesn't mean, however, that Regeni was
killed by Egyptian authorities, not to mention a direct involvement
of President al-Sisi, which is really unlikely (even if speculations
about that appeared on the Italian newspapers “La Repubblica”,
citing a mysterious Egyptian source). The admission that police
investigated on Regeni isn't an admission of guilt. Egyptian
authorities said that the denunciation came from an independent
trade union and that the investigation lasted only three days. Could
that support the hypothesis of a murder committed by union
officials? Whether or not, we are probably still far from any truth,
both real or official.
As the judicial sky is clearing up a bit, even on the political
stage something has moved between Egypt and Italy after the great
chill followed to Regeni's murder last winter. Italy tried to spark
off a diplomatic guerrilla against Egypt, persuading her Western
allies to isolate the Arab country. Unfortunately for her, that
utterly failed. Western countries showed to evaluate al-Sisi's
contribution against terrorism and Islamism far more than any moral
reservation about democracy and human rights. That should have sound
unsurprisingly to the Italian Government, as P.M. Matteo Renzi
himself once called al-Sisi “a great leader” and F.M.
Paolo Gentiloni described him as an “ally against jihadism”.
No wonder that Italy's Western partners shares the same idea on al-Sisi,
unchanged for them by any Regeni case.
As professor Anis H. Bajrektarevic rightfully diagnosed the trend of
2010s: “No Spring on a single string, right?! How
could any social cohesion, indispensable for the MENA
democratization, possibly work in the world of simplified choices
and various binary categorizations (the us-vs.-them/either-or),
where primary loyalties are (returned) to sect, tribe or ethnicity?
This dilemma relates not only to democracy, but also to the very
quest of secularism – for the one presupposes the other – ever since
the French Revolution. In this or any other part of the (developing)
world, institutionalization of democracy without secularization of
state inevitably leads to a dysfunctional, destabilizing and
(self-)debilitating government: divinization of the office and
personalization of power…”
Therefore Italy began to soften her stance. In May already, just one
month after having recalled it, Italy has reinstated her Ambassador
in Cairo. Italian attorneys have began to issue conciliatory
statements about their Egyptian colleagues. Even the July vote of
the Italian Parliament, the one that stopped Italian free supply of
F-16 spare parts to Egypt, was just a speed bump, result more of an
independent move by some parliamentarians than of a studied decision
by the Government. In fact persists in the Italian public opinion a
trend, lead by Regeni's parents and supported by Amnesty
International, pressing for a tougher stance against Egypt, able to
condition a large number of MPs but actually in the minority in the
country.
So, everything is bound to be settled between Italy and Egypt? Not
so fast. Even if Regeni case is no more a decisive factor, may well
be a tool in future disputes. And disputes may easily arise from the
Libyan theater. Al-Sisi in Libya bly supports his alter ego,
Khalifa Heftar, the most committed enemy of any Islamist factions.
On the contrary Islamists abounds in the other camp, the
Tripolitanian one, even after the instate of Fayez al-Sarraj and his
GNA. Pressed by Western powers, al-Sarraj installation has been
possible only thanks to cooptation of a large part of the former
“Libya Dawn” coalition, including Islamists as Abdelhakim Belhadj or
Abdelrauf Kara, not to mention the Muslim Brotherhood which is a
bęte noire to al-Sisi.
Recent conquest of the oil ports by Gen. Heftar has aroused official
condemnation by Western countries, but it's difficult to predict how
much of that public opposition could flow into private connivance.
Heftar has already received help by a lot of countries that in the
meantime bly supported the GNA – maybe because splitting up the
country is emerging in their assessments as the only viable solution
to the Libyan conundrum. The same could be true for Italy,
especially if – as it seems – Haftar could be a more reliable
guardian of Libyan oil (a large stack of total ENI production) than
Ibrahim Jidhran was.

• Daniele Scalea, geopolitical analyst, is Director-general of
IsAG (Rome Institute of Geopolitics) and Ph.D. Candidate in
Political studies at the Sapienza University, Rome. Author of three
books, is frequent contributor and columnist to various Tv-channels
and newspapers. E-mail:
daniele.scalea@gmail.com
September 23, 2016
The International Institute for
Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES)
in Ljubljana, Slovenia, regularly analyses events in the Middle East and the
Balkans. In view of the local election in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) which is
to take place on 2 October 2016 IFIMES has prepared an analysis of the current
political situation in that country. The most relevant parts from the analysis
entitled “BiH 2016 local election:
Dodik's referendum – opening Pandora's box in the Balkans?” are published
below.
BiH 2016 local election:
Dodik's referendum –opening Pandora's box in the Balkans?”
Bakhtyar Aljaf
Bosnia and Herzegovina will hold
local election on 2 October 2016. There are 3,345,486 registered voters in the
country. The number of voters who will vote by post at the forthcoming election
has significantly increased to 65,111. About 30,000 candidates are competing for
the positions in the future local government. Altogether 2,835 councillors will
be elected, of which 1,687 in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH),
1,117 in Republika Srpska (RS) and 31 in the Brčko District, as well as 301 city
council members of which 117 in FBiH and 184 in RS, 131 mayors of municipalities
and 12 mayors of cities.
Election will be held in all local government units with the exception of the
city of Mostar where no election has been held since 2008. The greatest
responsibility for the situation in Mostar lies with two leading parties: the
Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and Croatian Democratic Union of BiH (HDZBiH).
Despite their optimistic announcements regarding the agreement to be concluded
on local elections in Mostar, the current political leadership has not reached
any solution yet.
Local election marked by traditional political rivalries
The current election campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been marked
by traditional political rivalries.
As usually there are two political blocks in Republika Srpska: one coalition
comprises Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), Democratic People's
Union (DNS) and the Socialist Party (SP), while the other one (Union for Change)
is a coalition between the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), the Party of Democratic
Progress (PDP) and Democratic People's Alliance (NDP). The Union for Change has
lost much power due to collaboration between PDP leader and Serb Member of BiH
Presidency Mladen Ivanić and SNSD
leader and President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik. With PDP rapidly losing
support among the electorate, Ivanić is using inappropriate rhetoric that creates further tensions in BiH in order to
regain some of that support. This is a classic example of “political
prostitution”, which is characteristic of Ivanić.
The SDA-SBB coalition (SBB - Union for a Better Future) is the absolute
favourite of the upcoming local election. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) is
on the defensive, trying to find its place within the opposition. The Democratic
Front (DF) has been trying to present itself as the opposition party and a
fierce critic of the government, in which it has partly succeeded due to
numerous failures made by the incumbent government. It is becoming more and more
obvious that in the SDA-SBB coalition SDA will gradually take over SBB's power.
Judicial prosecution of SBB leader Fahrudin Radončić has left a heavy burden for the future of this party.
Election of a new SBB leader could eventually prevent its decline and open the
possibilities for the party to disengage from SDA's patronage.
Election in the Brčko District will be especially interesting. Brčko has
become a training ground for measuring the power of political parties in RS and
FBiH. All the largest parties have announced they will hold their main election
rallies in Brčko, which will further aggravate the atmosphere in the District
where considerable regression has been noticed in last years. The Brčko District
is an administrative unit of BiH with probably the highest number of initiated
and the lowest number of completed projects.
HDZBiH dominates in areas with predominantly Croatian population where it
will be very difficult to undermine its position.
Of special concern will be the forthcoming local election in Srebrenica due
to the genocide committed against the Bosniaks and since a large number of
voters from Serbia have been illegally added to the electoral roll of the
municipality of Srebrenica. In view of the above stated and other possible
malpractices in the election process and at the election it will be of grave
importance to carry out monitoring in Srebrenica.
While the higher state level is engaged by opposing political options, the
local level thrives with numerous unprincipled coalitions and a large number of
independent candidates and tickets.
Who does Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Janković support?
Although local elections are primarily an inner political issue, this is
not the case in Bosnia in Herzegovina. Politicians from Serbia and, to a lesser
degree, from Croatia actively interfere in BiH election campaigns, and it is not
a rare case that even Turkish politicians are involved.
The latest case of such international involvement in BiH election campaign
was the Mayor of Ljubljana Zoran
Janković who recently supported the candidate for mayor Igor Radojičić
from Dodik's SNSD in Banja
Luka. In February 2008 the US administration imposed “tacit” sanctions against
SNSD when three US agencies, including the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID), the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and
the International Republican Institute (IRI) ceased to provide aid to SNSD which
is led by the President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik. The US Government
decided to suspend the financing when it estimated that SNSD no longer fulfils
the criteria for USAID programme. Namely the American administration does not
provide financial or technical assistance to any political and/or national party
in Bosnia and Herzegovina whose activities are based on some ethnic preferences
or nationalism. The political programme of SNSD is not in line with Bosnia and
Herzegovina's aspirations for Euro-Atlantic integration. The US administration
established that the actions and statements made by SNSD have not contributed to
the progress of Bosnia and Herzegovina, are not in line with the Dayton Peace
Agreement and undermine the state institutions necessary for the realisation of
BiH Euro-Atlantic integration. SNSD is burdened with criminal encumbrances and
its leader Milorad Dodik is increasingly regarded as an exponent of Russian
politics in BiH and a symbol of crime and corruption. Moreover, SNSD has been
expelled from the Socialist International (SI) and from the Party of European
Socialists (PES).
Ljubljana Mayor Janković went on to express his support also in the Brčko
District where he supported BDP's (Brčko Democratic Movement) candidate for
mayor Admir Nuković, the recently
dismissed director of the “Komunalno Brčko” public utility company who is also
burdened with certain past encumbrances and controversies that undermine his
credibility and diminish his democratic capacity.
The International Monetary Fund has also interfered in BiH election campaign
by paying a loan tranche on 12 September 2016 to the governments of FBiH and RS,
thus expressing direct support to the incumbent leadership.
Serbia's Prime Minister
Aleksandar Vučić has also participated in the election campaign by attending
the opening ceremony of the Prnjavor-Doboj motorway, although this event has
nothing to do with the Government of the Republic of Serbia. The motorway is
named “9 January”, which is the date that was declared as unconstitutional for
the National Day of Republika Srpska by the decision of the Constitutional Court
of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
(EBRD) was also involved in the whole story of the “9 January” motorway by
financing the project with a loan of EUR 180 million, only to eventually see the
motorway with a disputable and unconstitutional name.
Although this is only a local election, there are too many actors involved in
the whole election process, many of them aggravating the already complicated and
difficult situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The pre-election period reminds
in certain aspects of the pre-war period in BiH 25 years ago and the smell of
war can already be felt in the air.
Dodik's referendum – an introduction into new geopolitical changes
Current events in Bosnia and Herzegovina are further complicating the
announced referendum in Republika Srpska scheduled for 25 September 2016, the
aim of which is to annul the decision of the BiH Constitutional Court that 9
January is unconstitutional for celebrating the Day of Republika Srpska since it
insults the feelings of the other two nations in the RS entity, the Bosniaks and
the Croats, as it was proclaimed by only one nation, the Serbs.
The High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina (OHR)
Valentin Inzko and the Peace Implementation
Council (PIC) have estimated that the announced referendum on the National Day
of Republika Srpska has an anti-Dayton character and threatens peace and
stability in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region.
Milorad Dodik is trying to force the Constitutional Court to revoke its
decision or to revise its judgement. This is clearly a case of legal nonsense, since judgements of the
Constitutional Court can not be not subject to revision – by submitting itself
to revision the Constitutional Court would actually abolish itself, which is
obviously Dodik's goal.
In his public appearances Dodik has been wise enough to stress that in Bosnia
and Herzegovina decisions should be adopted with the consensus of all the three
nations, while the decision on 9 January was only made by the representatives of
one nation – the Serbs. The solution for this crisis would be to involve all the
three nations, Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats, in the decision-making on the
National Day of Republika Srpska. However, it is obvious that Dodik lacks the
democratic capacity, so he uses the instrumentalist approach and manipulates the
feelings of his fellow Serbs in order to realise his one and only goal – to
remain in power.
Russia is bly involved in the referendum situation in RS, and Serbia has
also shown certain pretensions, although Aleksandar Vučić and Tomislav Nikolić
stated they do not support
the referendum, but they do not oppose it either. In fact this means tacit
support – the connoisseurs of the political situation are fully aware that
decisions on Republika Srpska are made in Belgrade, and the same goes for the
present referendum.
Another proof of Russia's involvement is the announced Milorad Dodik's visit
to Russian President Vladimir Putin scheduled for 22 September 2016. In international relations it is inconceivable
that Russia's President receives a president of some region of another country,
except if the visitor is an exponent of Russia's politics in that region. In
this case Dodik acts in Russian interests which are primarily focused on
preventing BiH from gaining NATO full membership and eventually also on the
dissolution of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The referendum that is to take place in Republika Srpska on 25 September 2016
is an introduction into new geopolitical turmoil and will open Pandora's box in
the Balkans with unimaginable consequences. This may lead to large geopolitical
changes in the region as well as globally, and the announcement of Dodik's
referendum may stir the process of internal (re)organisation of BiH.
Analysts believe that if the referendum actually takes place on 25 September
2016, this may lead to a chain reaction and a series of new referenda in BiH and
the region. Even Serbia will not be able to avoid this chain of referenda, with
Albanians in the Preševo Valley (Preševo, Medveđa, Bujanovac), who believe they
are the “Eastern Kosovo”, demanding annexation to Kosovo, followed by the
secession tendencies of the Bosniaks in Sandžak – although most of Bosniak
leaders are Vučić's followers, as well as Bulgarians in the region bordering
Bulgaria and Vlachs in east Serbia, and possibly even a referendum in Vojvodina
that will not be demanded by minority communities. The situation in Macedonia
will be further destabilised and the Serbs in Montenegro, encouraged with the
support from Moscow and Belgrade, will endeavour to create their own entity in
that country. There are many aspects that will lead to destabilisation in the
region due to Dodik's referendum. Any Serbia's escapade with Republika Srpska
may cause it to lose Vojvodina. Even Russia warned Serbia of this danger a few
years ago.
Analysts have estimated that the announced referendum in RS will lead to the
process of changes in internal (re)organisation of BiH based on the shock
doctrine. In democracy it is impossible to make any radically change in
direction without some shock that would “allow” those who have staged that shock
to organise the state according to their own principles and plans. In Dodik's
case it is paradoxical that he is creating a shock in the interests of others,
while he is being applauded for his “suicidal” action by almost all of his
public.
Analysts believe that participation of foreign judges in the BiH
Constitutional Court still brings certain new quality, since it contributes to
the reduction of politisation and provincialisation of such an important body.
Ljubljana, 17 September 2016
The International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES),
Ljubljana
Director: Bakhtyar Aljaf
September 17, 2016
Geopolitics of Climate
Change:
Future of Tao and
Quantum Buddhism[1]
Anis H.
Bajrektarevic
From
Rio to Rio with Kyoto, Copenhagen and Durban in between Paris right
after and the recent China’s G-20, the conclusion remains the same:
There is fundamental disagreement on the realities of this planet
and the ways we can address them.
A decisive breakthrough would necessitate both wider
contexts and a larger participatory base to identify problems, to
formulate policies, to broaden and to synchronize our actions.
Luminaries from the world of science, philosophy, religion, culture
and sports have been invited to each of these major gatherings. But,
they – as usual – have served as side-events panelists, while only
the politicians make decisions. Who in politics is sincerely
motivated for the long-range and far reaching policies? This does
not pay off politically as such policies are often too complex and
too time-consuming to survive the frequency and span of national
elections as well as the taste or comprehension of the median voter.
Our global crisis is not environmental, financial or
politico-economic. Deep and structural, this is a crisis of thought,
a recession of courage, of our ideas, all which leads us into a
deep, moral abyss. Small wonder, there was very little headway made
at the Rio+20, Paris Summit and beyond.
Between the fear that the inevitable will happen
and the lame hope that it still wouldn’t, we have lived… That what
can be and doesn’t have to be, at the end, surrenders to something
that was meant to be…[2]
* * * * *
If the subatomic world surface to an atomic,
quantum scientist (or metaphysicist) invites physicist. If atoms are
creating an advanced molecule, physicists can call up the chemists.
If such an organic molecule evolves too complex for the chemists,
they shift it over to the biologists. If a biological system is too
composite, they hand it over to the socio-politologists, or the
psychologists, at best. If that biota becomes overwhelmingly
complex, one needs geo-politics to connect (all) inorganic and
organic systems into a coherent space-time storyline.[3]
Do we really behave this way?
Enlightened Behind or dead Ahead?
Is Greece (or Spain) lagging 20 years behind the rest
of the EU or is Greece today well ahead of the rest of the
continent, which will face a similar fate two decades from now?[4]
Beyond the usual political rhetoric, this is the question that many
circles in Europe and elsewhere are discreetly, but thoroughly
discussing. In a larger context, the intriguing intellectual debates
are heating up.
Issues are fundamental: Why has science converted
into religion? Practiced economy is based on the over 200-years old
liberal theory of Adam Smith and the over 300-years old philosophy
of Hobbes and Locke– basically, frozen and rigidly canonized into a
strict exegesis. Academic debate has been replaced by a blind
obedience to old ‘scientific’ dogmas.[5]
Why has religion been transformed into
confrontational political doctrine (holy scripts are misinterpreted
and ideologically misused in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, the
Americas and Africa)?Why have (secular or theological) ethics been
turned from bio-centric comprehension into anthropocentric
environmental egotism and ignorance (treating nature as property,
rather than a coherent system that contextualizes our very life)?
Why are – despite all our research studies, institutions and
instruments – planetary inequalities and exclusions widening? Why
has been our freedom reduced to a lame here-us-now
choice to consume?
Why doesn’t the achieved degree of our economic
development and stage of our techno-logical advancement enable
society for self-realization?[6]
To the contrary, our democracies are in retreat, our visions are
exhausted and self-confidence depleted, while the socio-cultural and
political participatory base is thinning. After all, is Rio ahead of
itself 20 and 25 years later?
The resonance of these vital debates is gradually
reaching the public. No one can yet predict the range and scope of
their responses, internally and externally. One thing is certain
though: The simple mechanical transmission of global economic (and
regional monetary) integration cannot be a substitute for any viable
postindustrial, knowledge-based development strategy, scientific
advancement or cultural endorsement. Even less so, it can substitute
for any social cohesion and the cross-generational contract,
environmental needs (including the biocapacity and biodiversity), or
maintaining general public mental and physical health.
(Tao)[7]
Creek, not only Greek
By roughly summing up the data provided by the World
Bank and OECD, the world’s gross annual output is somewhere between
€85 and 95 trillions (thousand billions). Servicing of different
loans and related interest rates to public and private debts, per
annum, cumulatively costs this planet some € 195 to 210
trillions. In simple terms, it means we produce 1, but
owe 2 to the different credit institutions.[8]
How can it be that year after year we work harder and harder, but
are still becoming socio-economically poorer and culturally
pauperized, while generational accounting
gives us a worrying future prospect?
Is our environmental situation any better? By
applying the same data’s ecological footprint ratios, mankind
annually extracts from the ecosystem the biomatter and minerals for
1, out of which only 10% end up as a final product. At
the same time, we pollute waters, land, air and near outer space
with non-degradable and/or toxic, solid or aerosol, particles and
noise for 2. Despite all the purifiers, cleaners,
separators, distillations, silencers and filters, our surroundings
are becoming filthier and filthier. Does this earn the right to be
called ‘development’ at all? Over centuries, especially in the last
decades, we indeed intensified, rationalized and optimized our
economic activities as well as related technologies and information
flows. Still, could it be that despite our push with the right
intensity, the overall direction of that push is wrong?[9]
To answer these simply-worded but questions of
sensitive and complex (selfhood) meaning, we definitely have to
enlarge the context. For that sake, let’s return to Greece.
First, a few words about a term in frequent common
use: cosmos. The expression cosmos
itself is of Greek origins (κόσμος) and means: a harmony, perfect
order,[10]
and is opposite to the Greek word khaos/chaos (χάος), which
means: confusion, disorder, asynchrony (also an unordered and
formless primordial mass or even nothingness). The fascinating
classic-Greek mythology thoroughly describes the creation of the
world, as an event marked by the final victory of the forces of
cosmos over the forces of chaos. It is a thrilling ancient text,
marvelous in its beauty and symbolism.
“You Are the
Sunshine of My Life...”[11]
In the modern scientific and philosophical (or
astronomic, esoteric and theological) sense, the word cosmos should
describe (a dependent origination of) everything (of the manifested,
comprehensible and visible universe as well as the
non-comprehensible potentiality and invisible universes/multiverse)
that nature and/or God has created.[12]
As everything that has been, is and will ever be conceived as a
time–space, matter–energy and force (with all the properties and all
their conceivable aggregate states/stages, elevations and degrees),
particle – wave-function (consciousness-information), cosmos is
nature and/or God itself. It is all that ever begins (from),
lasts (with/in) and ends in (returns to) the quantum field.
Contemporary astrophysics claims that the known or
comprehensible universe is expanding, still being powered by the
quantum event generally referred to in literature as the big-bang
(or perhaps the Higgs Boson particle recently reviled by CERN). Up
to now, there is no general consensus of the scientific community on
what is the property (nature) of the invisible, inter-stellar and
inter-galactic space (dark matter). However, it is certain that the
visible stellar universe is mainly composed of two elements only:
helium and hydrogen. Thus, stars – this backbone of the universe –
are predominantly (to 99%) made of these two elements. Tantalizingly
enough, the colony of progressing biped primates, while evenly
spreading over this planet, has developed a b technological,
civilizational and physiological culture of addiction to a
completely other element: carbon.
Earth is practically bathing in immense spectrums of
sun-rays. This solar radiation that our star supplies above us is
practically an infinite source of energy.[13]
The core of our mother planet is still kinetically and thermally
very active, meaning that humans in fact sit atop a source of
inexhaustible energy provided by the gravitational, magnetic and
seismic events and enormous residual geothermal heat of the Earth.
How did we – advanced civilization – miss this?
Residing between two infinite energy aggregators, how did we end up
with hydrocarbons – with the carbonized remains of passed life? How
did we end up tapping just a thin upper lithosphere and keep
obsessively digging and drilling for fossil fuels? How did we
develop this necrophilic obsession?[14]
How did we manage to focus our human and economic development on
carbons, and steadily develop the so-called ‘technologies’ that
apparently take us right into a collision course with the universe
and with everything that surrounds our biosphere? Why do we keep
mankind enveloped in an exhausting competition and dangerous
confrontation over a tiny, finite portion of fossilized carbons
situated beneath the surface of our habitat? Finally, do we so live
cosmos or chaos?!
How did things go wrong in the first place?
Evolutionarily, our 2-million-year history as hunters-gatherers –
exposed to stark scarcities, rival gangs of humans and other
predators, permanent seasonal oscillations, harsh climatic and
topographic conditions, constituting an integral part of the natural
food-chain[15]
– has taught us to observe things sequentially,
horizontally, territorially, and linearly. Not cognitively. That’s
how we – through the primor-dial mechanical solidarity of an
endangered, insecure herd – learned to prolong our existence at the
expense of other living creatures, even turning their fossilized
remains into fuel.
“Get your kicks on
Route 66...”
[16]
Admittedly, the way we are developing and deploying
the anthropotechniques indicates that we did not manage to depart
significantly from the central pre-cognitive challenge which we
humans share with all other planetary forms of life – survival.[17]
Our central cognitive question, a quest that should largely
distinguish us from all other living forms: What am I doing
here?, or How can I bridge my past, my
presence, with my future? – remains largely unanswered. Our
‘developmental’ palliatives are corrosive, autistic, particularized,
aggressive, reactive, incoherent and harming for this planet and its
life. Rigid in a dynamic environment, we are still captivated by the
horizontalities of our insecure existence, all which conditioned our
lower laying brain foundations throughout our 2-million-year long
hominid history.[18]
Anthropology usually differentiates homo sapiens
(as an early, primitive hominine/homo) from homo
sapiens sapiens (advanced, modern man). By
relating our species to its ability to extract and consume calories
with the help of different anthropotechniques[19]
(presently called technologies), we may roughly divide the hominid’s
evolution in the following way:
(i)
2 million years/100.000/50.000 – 10.000 years ago: a
low-energy-consumption (conservative-solar techniques) driven human
race;
(ii) 10.000 – 200 years ago: a
medium-energy-consumption (hydraulic-agrarian, advanced-solar
techniques) driven human race;
(iii) 200 years ago (the event
of the so-called industrial revolution) – nowadays:
high-energy-consumption (hydrocarbon techniques) driven human race.[20]
Nevertheless, by observing the dynamics within the
human culture and ability of such a civilization to maintain a
natural equilibrium with the organic and inorganic surroundings, we
can make the following classification of history of our race:
a) barbarians without
technology (early humans) – no-to-moderate disturbance of the
animalistic civilization, and then;
b) 'mobilized/progressed’
barbarians with interfering ‘technology’ (the so-called modern men)
– excessive disturbance of the acultural civilization.[21]
The irreversible extraction of crude that we falsely
call ‘production’ of ‘black gold’ is simply a fallacy of myopic,
lethal addiction. The anthropotechnique which is exclusively fixated
on tapping a tiny portion of the lithosphere in search of fossil
remains – and then combusting those remains to convert them into our
prime energy source (with loads of collateral waste), is a barbarism
per se. It can only be marked as ‘technology’.
Yet, the scope, depth and endurance of our
anti-intellectual limbic ignorance and reptilian greed is so
fascinating, as it is our fixation with the locality, with the
territorial animal inside of us. Homo lupus ergo sum. Our
cerebral cortex (big, upper brain) is still a hostage of the
reptilian (lower part of our) complex. It keeps us in a disastrous
and obsessive captivity of the lower brain-determined, linear,
instinctive reflex to acquire ever large possessions of resources on
the given territory. This here-us-now
matrix deprives us of any ability to enlarge the perspective and to
grant it relief of the coherent, consciousness-based, cognitive
time-space dimension.[22]
Hence, no wonder that we are paying a heavy endpoint
price while still singing the self-assuring lullaby: save the
environment! It is simply a misstatement: the environment will
survive, we will be eliminated.
“Oh, Lord won’t
you buy me a Mercedes Benz…”[23]
– the Tao wisdom lost
That is how and where we set our obscure priorities:
Ever perpetuated competition that keeps us in barbaric, reptilian
confrontation over scarce resources. All this with the ‘technology’
which unstoppably emits greenhouse gasses, turning our earth into a
planetary gas-chamber,[24]
on the way to a self-prepared global holocaust. Technology is not
a state of arts (or science); technology is a state of mind![25]
It is not a linear progression in mastering the
natural science disciplines (alienating conservation), but rather
acquiring a coherent cognitive and emphatic critical insight
(liberating exploration). This ‘technology’ will turn into actual
technology when –or better say– if our conscious, a
self-actualizing, nonlinear, multidimensional and cluster-thinking
capacitated upper brain finally takes a firm command over the
reptilian, insecure, territorial, assertive, an eat-multiply-survive
reflex/instinct-induced lower brain.[26]
Following the outbreak of the still unsettled
financial crisis, there is a growing anti-neoliberal sentiment. But,
do not blame economy or (the dogmatic exegesis of) the credit
institutions. It is yet another anthropotechnique enveloped in the
human conscripts, in the codes of conducts devised on our long,
indecisive and inconclusive evolutionary march.[27]
What is wrong is our perception, or better say the
observer’s consideration spot, our cognitive departure point.
Why are we persistently projecting the circumstances
that environmentally conditioned us two million years ago? Finite
and depletable resources are something that our reptilian complex
has gotten accustomed to in the lasting course of evolution. All our
subsequent socio-economic fabrics, customs and normative orders, and
politico-military constructs have been emotionally charged.
Architectured around an emotional attachment, they have been the
creation of a deep psychologization based on a fearful dependency
over the horizontal and finite. We are the fear of scarcity–
obsessed culture.[28]
Adequate social cohesion and mobilization as well as
our overall comprehension of the infinite, renewable and
inexhaustible, would require cognition. This –in turn– would mark an
end of domination to the reptilian brain’s binary-mechanical and
instinctively- imposed and maintained securitization and control.
So far, control itself remained the central
solidifier of our civilizational vertical in managing the
unpredictable and instable human (group or individual) dynamics.
Fixation on finite resources and their consummation in controlled
space and controlled time are the ties that bind the human culture –
a social construct of psychologized securitization we conceive as
comprehensible and permissible, therefore possible.[29]
Infinity eliminates the premium of control, and of
mechanically-imposed and externally-induced coercive cohesion based
on ever perpetuated competition and confrontation. An antidote to
anxieties and seeds of fear, infinity eventually de-psychologizes
and demonopolizes the reptilian command over our cognitivity.[30]
Ergo, the grand mistake of our evolution is not an
emergence of the cerebral cortex. Our cent-ral problem is that the
upper brain has developed to service and aid the reptilian complex
with anthropotechniques (to be enslaved by it), not vice versa. For
such a new evolutionary arrival, admittedly our species developed
fast– as (limbic drive is possessive and) the reptilian
binary-instinctive brain is highly efficient. Though efficient, it
is not as far-reaching! Thus, yesterday in Rio or Paris, as 45 years
ago in Stockholm or 25 in the 1st
Rio summit, we do face similar unsolvable dilemmas
and grave, ever mounting, problems.
Nowadays, we seemingly understand the obstacle–
limits to growth. However, our limit is not (solely) territorial or
linear, it is substantively cognitive.[31]
Living in a limbo of our unfinished evolution and our own denial of
it: We overused all life-contents around us that we plainly borrowed
from the future past, while we overlook all the time what we do have
(with us) in our past future. Simply, there is far more to learn
about ourselves from our long unrecorded chapters of history then
from the times we started to keep records.
“Tomorrow Never
Dies”[32]
In his famous speech of 1944, Max Planck spelled out
something that philosophy, religion, astronomy and physics were
indicating ever since the classic Greeks (or to be precise, since
the ancient Vedic Sanskrit texts).[33]
It laid down the foundation, not only of quantum physics[34]
but also, of the so-called Unified Theory of Everything (TOE) as
well as the (Coherent key to) Secrets of Creation. Moreover, it
rejuvenated and reaffirmed many of the Buddhist Tantric
perspectives, especially the metaphysical visions contained within
the Yogacara,[35]
as well as one of paticcasamuppada[36]
– the so-called interdependent non-directional origination.
Hence, if one of the newest TOEs postulated by
Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow is correct – that the
quantum universe, as a self-excited circuit, tends to create meaning
and that the observers are part of the system –
than the cosmos self-actualizes itself.[37]
It concludes that, as the universe evolves, enabling organization to
emerge, our consciousness creates the universe/multiverse.[38]
If so, it leads to a self-actualization of us in cosmos too, as then
the fundamental nature of reality should be a comprehensive and
coherent self-perception.[39]
This TOE would then suppose our constant mastering of
arts, which is not a ‘technology’ that preserves status quo,
but is a technology that opens,
liberates and expands. How can the carbon–addicted culture of
fragile and insecure, but here-us-now assertive and corrosive
bipeds, whose overall dynamics are largely determined by the binary
(fight-flight, consume-abandon) actions of the reptilian complex
consciously project an intelligent universe predominantly composed
of helium and hydrogen in all its immensity?[40]
The answer is easier than it seems at first glance.
It goes back to one of the most intriguing questions of both
philosophy and astronomy: Is there any life out there?
Neither the very peripheral position of our solar
system within the stellar cluster of the Milky Way, nor a remote
place of our galaxy in the known cosmos would indicate any
centrality, any exclusivity of and monopoly over conscious life to
us. Ergo, if such a periphery can sustain a variety (constancy) of
life forms and development of cognitive brains, then the rest of the
universe must simply flourish in
intelligent life[41]
– this is the only logical explanation.
Proof?
While being everyone
and having
everything, all the rest of the immense cosmic intelligence
self-actualizes and projects the solar equilibrium, a coherent
helium-hydrogen-manifested and as such illuminated universe. It is
simply waiting for us – to succeed or fail in departing from the
self-imposed asymmetries, scarcities, convulsions, disharmonies and
imbalances created by having fossilized
fuel – in our attempt to return back to our pre-carbon, solar Tao
future.[42]
“If they say to you, ‘Where have you come from?’ Say
to them, ‘We came from the
[solar]
light, the place where the light came into being of
its own accord’” The beauty of this passage from the Gospel of
Thomas is that it is equally accurate for both science and for
spirituality.[43]
Mankind will either combust itself to death or
finally comprehend the inevitability of the obvious – of our cosmic
being, as there is no having without being, and there is no
being without or against universe. After all, there is no world
of things without or on expenses of
cosmos of life. This requires a resolute
departure from the primordial hunter-gatherer attitude, and decisive
deployment of our cognitivity. Chaos or
cosmos – a simple choice.
Epilogue, not far away from Rio[44]
“...Deep in the rainforests of the Amazon, the
Achuar and the Huaorani
Indians are assembled for their daily ritual. Every
morning, each member of the tribe awakens before dawn, and once
gathered together in that twilight hour, as the world explodes into
light, they share their dreams. This is not simply an interesting
pastime, an opportunity for storytelling: to the Achuar
and the Huaorani, the dream is owned not by
the dreamer alone, but collectively by the group, and the individual
dreamer is simply the vessel the dream decided to borrow to have a
conversation with the whole tribe.
The tribes view the dream as a map for their wakening
hours. It is a forecaster of what is to come for all of them. In
dreams they connect with their ancestors and the rest of the
universe. The dream is what is real. It is their waking life that is
a falsehood…”[45]
Wisdom is technique to
wake up.

Anis H. Bajrektarevic, Geopolitics of Energy
Editorial Member
Chairperson for Intl. Law & Global Pol. Studies
Vienna, 22 AUG 2016
Contact:
anis@bajrektarevic.eu
References:
1. Andric, I. (1982), Bosnian Chronicle,
Harvill Press London (Travnicka Hronika, originally published
1945)
2. The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992),
UN CED – Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro, 1992
3. The UN CSD/Rio+20 Prep Documents Set including the UNEP and
UN Sec-G. consolidated Reports (2011-12)
4. Sileitsch, H. (2012), In zwanzig Jahren sind wir alle
Griechen, Wiener Zeitung – Austria (page: 1, 3 and 25-26)
5. Veenhoven, R. (2009) World Database of Happiness,
Studies in Social and Cultural Transformation, Erasmus
University Rotterdam, Netherlands
6. World Bank (2012), World Development Report 2012: Gender
Equality and Development, WB Publications
7. OECD (2012), OECD Economic Outlook (Preliminary
Version, May 2012), OECD Publications
8. IEA (2012), World Energy Outlook 2012 – Golden Rules for
a Golden Age of Gas, OECD – IEA Publications
9. WWF, GFp, IoZ and ESA (2012), Living Planet:
Biodiversity, biocapacity and better choices, Report 2012
10. Sagan, C. (1980), Cosmos Random House, NY /Carl Sagan
Productions Inc.
11. Bajrektarevic, A. (2002), Environmental Ethics /Anthropo-techniques/,
Lectures/Students Reader, Vienna (IMC University Krems), Austria
12. Mumford, L. (1970), The Myth of the Machine – Pentagon of
Power (Technics and Human Development Vol.2), Mariner Books (Ed.
1974)
13. Ibn Khaldűn (1398), Muqddimah – al-Kitābu l-ʻibār (the
Prolegomenon – An Introduction to History), Princeton University
Press (Ed. 1967)
14. Engels, F. (1972), The Origin of The Family, Private
Property and the State, Penguin Classics (Der Ursprung der
Familie, des Privateigenthums und des Staats, fist published in
1884, Hottingen–Zürich)
15. Spencer, H. (1855), A System of Synthetic Philosophy
(Principles of Biology, Psychology and Sociology), Brighton (6th
Edition, 1900), Obscure Press
16. Campanella T. (1623), Civitas Solis (The City of the
Sun), SBF Genoa (1919) La cittŕ del Sole: Utopia alla ricerca
della felicitŕ o incubo totalitario?, Nabu Edizioni
17. Bryson, B. (2004), A Short History of Nearly Everything,
Broadway Books
18. Hunter, M. (2011), Opportunity, Strategy and
Entrepreneurshi – A Meta Theory (Vol. II), Nova Science
Publishers
19. Kulic, S. (2004), Neoliberalism as Social-Darwinism,
Prometej Zagreb
20. Fleming, G. (2011), Quantum–coherent energy transfer:
Implications for biology and new energy technologies, Conference
proceedings, University of California, Berkeley
21. EBBS (2011), European Brain and Behavior Societ – Cognitive
Neuroscience Lectures (2008–2012) EBBS Leiden
22. Hobson, J. M. (2008), The Eastern Origins of Western
Civilization, Cambridge University Press
23. Bajrektarevic, A. (2012), Geopolitics of Technology and the
Hydrocarbon Status Quo (Why Kyoto Will Fail Again), Geopolitics
of Energy, 34 (1), CERI Canada 2012
24. Flisar, A. (2007), Concept Paper: Quantum Mind – Launching
the Oxford Academy of Total Intelligence, Oxford
25. Acemoglu, D. and Robinson, J.A. (2012), Why Nations Fail –
The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, Crown Publishing
New York
26. Bajrektarevic, A. (2012), Climate Change – Humans Remain
the Same, Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice 4 (1):
2012, Addleton Publishers
27. Tesla, N. (1915), How Cosmic Forces Shape our Destines,
New York American (February 07th,
1915, Page: 9)
28. Planck, M. (1944), Das Wesen der Materie (The Nature of
Matter), speech at Florence, Italy, 1944 (retrieved from:
Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11
Planck, Nr. 1797)
29. Hawking, S. & Mlodinow, L. (2010), The Grand Design: New
Answers to the Ultimate Question of Life, Bantam Books
30. Talbot, D. and Thornhill, W. (2007), The Electric Universe,
Mikamar Publishing
31. Smetham, G. (2011), Quantum Buddhism: Dancing in Emptiness
- Reality Revealed at the Interface of Quantum Physics and Buddhist
Philosophy, Graham Smetham–Shunyata Press
32. Feynmann, R.P. (2014), QED – The Strange Theory of Light
and Matter, Princeton University Press
33. Stapp, H.P. (2009), Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics,
Springer (3rd
Edition)
34. Vedral, V. (2010), Decoding Reality – The Universe as
Quantum Information, Oxford University Press
35. Chopra, D. & Mlodinow, L. (2011), Is God an Illusion?,
Harmony Books, US
Abstract:
From Rio to Rio with Kyoto, Copenhagen, Durban and
Paris in between, the conclusion remains the same: There is
fundamental disagreement on the realities of this planet and the
ways we can tackle them.
What is the relation between Buddhism and the Climate
Change? Well, far more than it appears on the first glance. A
decisive breakthrough would necessitate both wider contexts and a
larger participatory base to identify problems, to formulate
policies, to broaden and to synchronize our actions. Still, who in
politics is sincerely motivated for the long-range and far reaching
policies? This does not pay off politically as such policies are
often too complex and too time-consuming to survive the frequency
and span of national elections as well as the taste or comprehension
of the median voter.
Our crisis is deep and structural: it is a recession
of courage, retreat of our ideas, all which leads us into a deep,
moral abyss.
Key words:
Rio Summit, Greece, de-carbonization, reptilian
complex, limbic drives, cerebral cortex, culture of species, cosmos,
light, astrophysics, anthropotechniques, horizontality, quantum
biology, Buddhism, Tao, technology, evolution, energy, quantum
physics, Max Planck, Tesla, defensive modernization, environmental
holocaust, sovereign debt crisis, civilizational imperatives.
[1]
The very term ‘Quantum Buddhism’ is coined by Graham Smetham, author
of the book: Quantum Buddhism: Dancing in Emptiness.
[2]
Taken from Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andric, the 1961 winner
of the Nobel Prize in literature.
[3]
Initial line, hereby considerably adjusted and expanded by author,
taken from Carl Sagan.
[4]
For example, one of the eldest world dailies, Wiener Zeitung
published since 1703, brings a cover page with the following title
“In zwanzig Jahren sind wir alle Griechen” (In 20 years we will all
be Greeks). WZ, 10 March 2012.
[5]
Belief is confidence (promise of certainty), knowledge is evidence
(probabilistic estimate of truth/insight into a coherent reality).
Other word for religion is compliance; other word for science is
doubt. Liberal, mesmerizing and attractive as it might be, “science
is open-minded because it has no agenda”, as Mlodinow says.
Enhancing good and avoiding evil is eternal inspiration for
spirituality as well as the declared moral charge of any organized
religion. Thus, it was maybe religion indeed that tranquilized,
bonded and soul-deepened humanity in the course of centuries. Still,
it was science and its approach to coherence of reality that steered
up mankind towards a dwell of (applicable) knowledge previously
unattainable by any other medium/means. Ergo, if pre-conscripted and
canonized, that is never a science. It can only be a lame
obedience.
[6]
The innovative, pioneer work of prof. Veenhoven (from the Erasmus
University of Rotterdam) on the World Database of Happiness is
chronically underfunded ever since established in 1998, although
representing an extraordinary and indispensible research of its
kind. In his unique narrative of 1972, the 4th
King of Bhutan (Jigme Singye Wangchuck) reaffirmed the centuries old
national code of conduct: “if the government cannot create happiness
(dekid) for its people, there is no purpose for the Government to
exist”. Thus, the concept of the GNH (Gross National Happiness) is
even embedded in the Bhutan’s constitution (Article 9) as an
alternative to the generally practiced GDP. This fact is largely
ignored by practitioners and academia. Seems, as if nobody in
today’s world is interested in pursuit of happiness.
[7]
Tao (Chinese
道;
pinyin) literary means ‘The Path’. In the larger context of
ancient Chinese thought, it catalyzed the LaoTze-an foundation of
the later philosophical and religious/esoteric conscripts.
[8]
Some 25 years ago, the value of overall global financial
transactions was 12 times the entire world’s gross annual product.
By the end of 2015, it was nearly 75 times as big. (Surely, noting
of it is taxed.)
[9]
E.g. There is not a single peer-reviewed international journal that
has published even one scientific article in the last 30 years which
reports on factual evidences that any organic (marine and
continental biota) or inorganic (soil, glaciers, water, polar caps,
etc) system is doing better on this planet. There has not been a
single RE or UN report in the last 30 years that credibly denies a
worrying increase in severity and frequency of “natural”
catastrophes worldwide. Finally, there is not a single
internationally recognized medical journal that has not been
constantly reporting on an alarming increase in skin-cancers,
respiratory and allergy related diseases for the past 30 years. (To
put aside the alarming studies on the severe impact of the so-called
video media entertainment on the early neurological development of
children and the overall mental and physical health of youth – as
none of these games is either evolutionary or bio-neurologically
justified for a proper development of the child’s cerebral cortex/neuroplasticity.)
Hence, all the planetary systems are in retreat; drifting,
decomposing, malfunctioning, rarefying, and vanishing. Instead of a
resolute action to change our dangerous patterns, the only
self-assuring comfort comes from our ignorance and anti-intellectual
urge to escapism (by waiting for a while and then offering more of
the same).
[10]
Ancient Chinese Mandarin translates the word ‘cosmos’ as yuzhou
(宇宙).
Astonishingly precise, even for Einstein’s relativity, this
literally means space–time (宇
yu – space&
宙
zhou – time). Indeed, observing skies above us
is always both a space and a time travel. (Or to say; above us is a
welkin of visualized time.) While the most of modern European
languages use either Greek (cosmos) or Latin (universe) word,
Southern Slavs have nearly esoteric term svemir (Russian
вселенная):
‘omnipresent tranquility’ (sve
– overall/total,
mir –
peace, harmony). Ergo,
universe
must be
Uni-Verse
= One Song/Tune.
[11]
Taken from Stevie Wonder’s song:
‘You are the Sunshine of My Life’ (1973).
[12]
Our cosmos is a finite but
borderless everexpanding (non-linear) multiverse. It can be
tentatively illustrated as something spherical, quite much as a
surface of Earth that expands, plus 2-3 (non-areal) dimensions
including the quantum one, too. Our universe/multiverse is relative
in its contents (of histories and manifestations), and their
constellations, but (to us) is absolute in its (space-time)
omnipresence. Or, as Sagan beautifully concludes: ‘The Cosmos is all
that is or ever was or ever will be.’
[13]
According to the WMO (World
Meteorological Organization), the solar energy reaching the earth
surface by far exceeds the global energy production of mankind –
over 20,000 times. That means that our PEM (primary energy mix) has
to provide us with the current amounts for 20,000 consecutive years
to reach the scale of what solar radiation supplies us with
annually, all for free!!
[14]
We falsely believed, throughout
the 20th
century, that the nuclear
holocaust will put an end to the entire human race. No! It will be a
slow, nearly-unnoticed, gradual but steady construction of the
global gas chamber – of the troposphere filled by the green-house
gas emissions. Certainly, no other species on this planet are both
biotrophic and necrotrophic, at the same time highly corrosive.
Hence, the way we extract, produce, transport, distribute and
consume, the way we keep all this running on a blind obedience to
fossil hydrocarbons, and finally the way
how we
do reflect,
contemplate and study on
all that, inevitably
takes us right into the environmental holocaust.
[15]
It seems that the latest
discoveries on the dynamics of property are indicating that the
photosynthesis (a fundamental process of biology that creates life
on the bottom of the food-chain. By capturing carbon dioxide, it
supplies the upper echelons of this chain with a released oxygen and
provides a carbon-hydrate caloric food) is powered by the quantum
event. Consequently, a new discipline – quantum biology by words of
Graham Fleming, a physical/biodynamics chemist – suggests ‘that
the quantum mechanical effect might be the key to the ability of
green plants, through photosynthesis, to almost instantly transfer
stellar/solar energy from molecules in light harvesting complexes to
molecules in electrochemical reaction centers.’
This simply means that electrons quantumly test out all available
paths and ‘choose’ the most efficient one. It represents an almost
conscious decision in which a quantum mechanical exploration is
conducted, and then also quantum mechanically the most accurate
pathway is selected to do the instant and highly efficient
transfer.
[16]
Taken from Nat Kings Cole’s song:
‘Route 66’(1946), written by Bobby Troup.
[17]
In such a constellation the
cerebral cortex is reduced to only service the territoriality of
reptilian (lower) brains. Evolution-wise, humans are – like other
mammals – social animals, but also territorial: An areal presence on
certain territory, humans are historically linking to its very
survival. Traditionally, it was not much of the cognitively-induced
transcendent dimension – morality, but far more simply an
instinctive fear of conflicting territorial claim of rivals, which
kept humans from uncontrolled maximization of territorial (and any
other) claim. These are the origins of our everlasting
grand-fascinations with fences, borders, demarcation lines,
exclusion zones, buffer belts, frontiers, boundaries and related
sorts of divisions, particularizations, differentiations,
sectarianism, gaps, cleavages and separations.
[18]
The eldest layer of our brains
structure, the so-called reptilian complex is a center of our
instincts – reproduction and survival (something we share with most
other animals). The limbic system – the second evolutionary arrival,
according to neuroscience – is a center of emotions. The last to
emerge, the upper brain – neocortex/cerebral cortex, by far the
largest segment of our brains, is a center of our cognitivity, of
reason. While emotions and reason are complex (therefore slow and
sometimes inaccurate), the instincts are highly efficient, fast and
accurate as they operate on the binary-code fight-or-flight
principle without thinking and feeling or recalling previous
experiences. It is therefore characterized as: cold and rigid,
calculative and insecure, territorial and assertive, greedy and
ignorant, hierarchical and opportunistic. Environmentally
conditioned from its first formation days on, the Reptilian brain is
efficient, but is not far-reaching! Driven by the grab-consume-run
(fear-anger complex), it strikingly opposes cognitivity (exploration
complex) – human autonomy, self-actualization, empathic solidarity,
coherence, mastery, virtue and purpose – all of which are centered
in cerebral cortex. (Put into the language of state organs: lower
brain would be the armed forces – capacitated with the rapid
response, and the upper brains would be a parliament – with the time
consuming and tedious, consensual and multilayer procedures, but of
far-reaching deliberations).
[19]
As anthropotechniques, we
should assume the (precognitive and) conscious clustering of
different experiences, knowledges, discoveries, patents and the
like; its practical application in any human activity (including all
modes of horizontal and vertical transmission) aimed at acquiring
resources for consumption in space and time by variety of tools and
weaponry. As the only compensation for the biological and
neurological limitations of humans (inferior to other forms of life
on the planet), the anthropotechniques were answering the central
pre-cognitive concern of humans: Survival!
This is a self-coined definition
that for years I use in my lectures on the Institutions and
Instruments of Sustainable Development (chapter: Environmental
ethics). As such, the definition is extensive enough to describe the
event of first usage of the sharp stone/broken bone by early
homo faber
all the evolutionary way to the
development and deployment of the nuclear bomb.
[20]
If we observe the exponential
growth in hydrocarbon consumption over the last 150 years, the very
amplitude of the demographic growth will follow it with astonishing
complementarity over the same period. The conclusion is interesting:
past the industrial age, humans have become ‘grand alchemists’ (to
use the expression of thinkers like David Suzuki and Wes Jackson),
turning fossilized hydrocarbons into human biomass.
[21]
The life of plants and animals
converted by the geomorphologic action of earth (forces that are
enabled by the cosmos, in general and the sun of our mono-stellar
system, in particular) into oil-gas-coal has been possible ONLY due
to a hydrogen-helium generated solar energy. Our fossil-carbon
originated energy is only the carbon-sequestrated stellar energy
stored in the past! Tapped, released and combusted today, seems as
it punishes its colony of advanced bipeds – us, as parasites – with
a lot of smoke. Looks actually like a message from our solar past
sent to our solar future: if we eliminate the pre-Cambrian caloric
intermediary between us and energy in our anti-solar presence, clear
radiant skies full of sun will (re-) appear right above us. Maybe
above said sounds esoteric, yet it is not a less accurate and
authentic finding.
[22]
Annotated from my recent
writings, it states as following: “…the main problem with
Green/Renewable (de-carbonized)
energy is not the
complexity, expense, or the lengthy time-line for fundamental
technological breakthrough. The central issue is that it calls for
a major
geopolitical breakthrough.
Oil and gas are convenient for monopolization (of extraction
location and deployed machinery, as well as of international flows,
of pricing and consumption modes) – it is a physical commodity of
specific locality. Any green technology – not necessarily of
particular location or currency – sooner or later will be
de-monopolized, and thereby made available to most, if not to all…
Ergo, oil (and gas) represents far more than energy. Petroleum…is a
socio-economic, psychological, cultural, financial, security and
politico-military construct, a phenomenon of civilization that
architectures the world of controllable horizontalities which is
currently known to, possible and permitted, therefore acceptable for
us. (Geopolitics
of Technology and the Hydrocarbon Status Quo /Why Kyoto Will Fail
Again/, Geopolitics of
Energy, 34 (1), CERI Canada 2012)
[23]
Taken from Janis Joplin’s song:
‘Mercedes Benz’(1970).
[24]
We are even celebrating this
gas-chamber: note the title of the recently released annual energy
report of the IEA (International Energy Agency):
Golden Rules for a Golden Age of
Gas… Golden Age of
Gas! (For our global Auschwitz!)
Seriously?
[25]
Something that accelerates our
disconnection with both oneself and the rest (be it aimless rushing,
venerations of nullity, or diverting banalities of ads,
‘entertainment’, social media, ‘infotainment’ and other sorts of
enormous noise), making us ever more alienated, insecure and
self-destructive cannot be referred as a technology that serves the
enhancement of mankind.
[26]
Contextualizing a well-known
argument of ‘defensive modernization’ of Fukuyama along with
Kissinger’s ‘confrontational nostalgia’, it is to state that
throughout the entire human history a technological drive was aimed
to satisfy the security (and control) objective. It was rarely (if
at all) driven by a desire to ease human existence or to enhance
human emancipation and liberation of societies at large. Thus,
unless operationalized by the system, both intellectualism (human
autonomy, mastery and purpose), and technological breakthroughs were
traditionally felt and perceived as a threat.
[27]
No
surprise that we are cannibalizing our future by sacrificing our
youth (with massive unemployment, pollutions and other extended
debts) to please the shadowy but omnipotent Credit Rating Agencies,
while we have never contemplated creation of the
Moral Rating Agency.
[28]
Thus, self-imprisoned in fallacy
of such a cosmic disharmony, we must look so pathetic by standing
alone against the immensity of this omnipotent and ultrarich
universe.
[29]
The highly intriguing theory
(supported by the extensive geological evidences including the
bacteriological analysis of deep-laying hydrocarbons) about the
abiotic nature of oil and its practically infinite recreation in the
lower geological formations of earth was presented some 25 years
ago. These findings were quickly dismissed, and the theory itself
largely ignored and forgotten. The same happened with the highly
elaborate plans of Nikola Tesla to exploit a natural geo-electrical
phenomenon for the wireless transfers of high energy for free. Why?
Infinity eliminates the premium of deeper psychologisation, as it
does not necessitate any emotional attachment – something abundantly
residing in nature cannot efficiently mobilize our present
societies.
[30]
Or, in the words of Prof. Murray
Hunter: “…And this is the other fallacy that we have been deceived
by. In our wonderment of this great technology that elevated
humankind to the level of god, we missed the major ingredient that
technology requires. Technology without “knowing” is useless, if not
dangerous. Like little boys with new toys we have played with
fireworks without thinking of the consequences. And yes we burnt our
hands – so stupidly, without even ‘knowing’ it... Science and
technology is really about making us see and we have failed to
understand that. We have blindly used it along the singular paradigm
that we think we understand…We need to admit that some things are
beyond our instinctive and limbic capability.” (Opportunity,
Strategy and Entrepreneurship–A Meta Theory,
M.H. 2011)
[31]
Consequently, the Euro-crisis or any other financial/debt crisis –
for that matter – is only a construct of our mental projection as it
is not founded anywhere in the deeper layers of reality. Linear
insecurity- and uncertainty-focused as a solely horizontally
perceiving, conflicting and interfering, scarcity securitization and
control-obsessed, dependency-fixated culture cannot simply evolve
into a liberating society or anything else coherent and harmonious.
On the contrary, it will tend to deepen the existing and extend the
projected confrontational horizontalities as it will maximize the
psychologization of dependences. Cognitive mind (equilibrium/cosmos)
vs. reptilian complex (balance of fear/chaos)! The very epilogue of
the financial crisis seems to be only the redistribution of
dependencies and enhanced control, not at all steering up the
nations to a well-being, to a self-realization. If the elected
democratic governments are reluctant to be instrumented to this end,
Politbureau
of the non-elected
apparatchiks
will eagerly finalize the
unfinished. Therefore, we even interpret the very word ‘crisis’
falsely. This term has a dual meaning: ‘hardship’ (fear-anger) as
well as ‘opportunity’ (exploration-liberation). Opportunity per
definition will always challenge the established status quo, but
that thought usually disfranchises, discourages and disengages us.
Example? Since the reporting on the Greek/Euro sovereign debt crisis
has started, how many words related to a change or opportunity have
you heard (e.g. solidarity, creativity, initiative, job creation,
action, broader consensus, vision, rethinking, bravery, dignity,
self-respect, trust, virtue), and how many words related to a
paralyzing status-quo (e.g. monetization, toxic assets, fiscal
discipline, austerity measures, monetary control, budgetary
straitjacket, debt instruments, general savings, conditionality
strengthening, concerns intensified, budget cuts, downgrading,
social haircut, withheld guaranties, massive default, tightening the
financial screws, consumer confidence, record low, collapse
prevention)? For a cognitive mind, a period of crisis is not the
time to seed fear, to save, back off and wait, but to spend, to
grant a freedom of initiative, to fully mobilize and largely engage
fresh ideas and all other human resources. After all, one entity is
in a decline when it reacts
to the risks, far more than it
acts on
opportunities. This simple wisdom has nothing to do with the
so-called economy;
it is merely a question of perception. Finally, freedom will only
surface when/ if the cognitive (coherent) mind retrieves it from the
fundamental level of reality. That is why Q-physics (Buddhist or Tao
wisdom) matters.
[32]
Paraphrasing the title of the
James Bond action movie of 1997, written by B.J. Feirstein and
directed by R. Spottiswoode.
[33]
“All matter originates and exists
only by virtue of a force...We must assume behind this force
existence of a consciousness and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the
matrix of all matter.” Max Planck, Das Wesen der Materie (The Nature
of Matter), Florence, 1944. At about the same time our joy for the
‘defensive modernization’ peaked with the mastering of the atomic
bomb: the nuclear (weapon) age. Deeper implications and meanings of
the quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, bioelectric medicine or
neurocybernetics’ research of
ganzfeld,
for our understanding of and our engagement with the process of
reality (and selfhood), were disregarded, marginalized and nearly
forgotten. And Plank himself was considered as Quantum mystic.
[34]
One of the fundamental laws of
quantum physics says that an event in the subatomic world exists in
all possible states until the act of observing or measuring it
“freezes” that, or pins it down, to a single state. This process is
technically known as the collapse of the wave function, where
wave function
means the state of all
possibilities. Hence, the subatomic world can behave either as
particles (precise things with a set location in space) or waves
(diffuse and unbounded regions of influence which can flow through
and interfere with other waves). Therefore, of neither matter nor a
place, quantum world is an event.
E.g.
an electron is not a precise entity, but exists as a potential, a
superposition, or sum, of all probabilities until we observe or
measure it, at which point the electron freezes into a particular
state. Once we are through looking or measuring, the electron
dissolves back into the either of all possibilities. That means that
reality must results from some elaborate interaction of
consciousness with its environment.
The confirmation comes from the
past. Hebrews (the New Testament) 11:3 says: “What is seen was not
made out of what is visible”. The XIII century Persia mystic Rumi
looks like a pen-friend of Ludwig Boltzman. He seems as writing the
letter to the father of astrophysics of the early XX century, when
noting: “Look at these worlds spinning out of nothingness. That is
within your power.”
[35]
It’s absolutely astonishing that
the ancient Sanskrit texts describe quantum vacuum and zero-point of
the quantum field – by term
sunya.
This word should be interpreted as describing a cosmic seed of
nothingness, which (hanging in a limbo of non-experience) is swollen
by potentiality – an egg of infinite potentiality or
shunyata
on a brink to burst into a deep
infinite-dimensional sea of manifestation/s. No wonder that the
arithmetic sign for zero (that the rest of us took from Hindus) is
actually an egg-shape, the same one called ‘origin’ in geometry to
mark the center or beginning of a coordinate plane.
[36]
Esoteric teachings of
paticcasamuppada
are considered a core of
Buddhism. Applying the extensive philosophical interpretation to
this teaching, it remarkably fits to the astrophysical theory of the
so-called dependent (interpenetrating) origination. It also well
supports basic laws of both quantum mechanics and evolutionary
biology about a self-organizing system in an ever self-expanding,
dynamic equilibrium which is rather dialectic than a directional.
[37]
Sharing this anthropic viewpoint
that the quantum wavefunction of the primordial meaningless universe
stands on the very edge of time-space and meaning, and that the
collapse of the wavefunction (an inception of cosmos) marks
materialization of previously shapeless, non-experienced
potentiality (that becomes possibility, an experienced classical
event, by action of conscious-ness), Henry Stapp describes
potentiality-consciousness as: ‘the two-way quantum psycho-physical
bridge’. Conclusively, if we are to identify the meeting ground for
the comprehensive and lasting reconciliation between science and
religion, we must further investigate ‘Stapp’s bridge’. E.g. in
mental(ly experienced) space, mind and matter move together as one.
[38]
It would correspond to the
Buddhist expression
karma (usually
misinterpreted in the West by reducing it to a lame moral
conscript). The word
karma has far more
extensive meaning in Buddhism and should be understood as an
(intractable) action which leaves an informational imprint in all
deeper levels of realities which can be activated at some future
point in time. Hence, this self-synthesizing universe paradigm of
quantum physics fully corresponds with the Buddhist
Yogacara
assumption that all perceptions
do leave traces which make future similar perceptions more
probable/plausible – origins of the potentialities within the
quantum realm. This is why mankind kept practicing a prayer.
[39]
Vedas
describes it as
siddhis –
psychic event (comes after
profound meditative states) when the meditator experiences a feeling
of omniscient knowing – a sense of seeing everywhere at once (a
state of illuminating darkness, of superrich nothingness); or when
the subject enters a state of unity with the single object being
focused upon (sometimes followed by a psychokinetic effect:
levitation or moving objects at a distance). In nearly every
instance, the recipient eliminates the sensory bombardment of
everyday and taps into a deep well of alert receptivity. Could it be
that this art is like any other form of communication, but the noise
of our everyday McFB
life prevents us hearing it?
[40]
Just one illustration that for
our civilizational and/or developmental dead-ends, we do need
cognitive mind to recognize it, not the ‘technology’ to ‘fix it’.
For that sake, let us examine the so-called locomotoric engines
(Otto’s ICE), which we use for transportation as well as for energy
conversion/transfer. (We sow it first used by Chinese and Ottomans
for guns and canons since they are in effect a one-cylinder internal
combustion engines – ICE. Its military deployment we wanted to
domesticate by using these destructive devices in a constructive
way?!?) There is absolutely no need for any ICE’s fuels or
combustion efficiency improvements. What is required is a new
approach, new philosophy. And, it is to depart from the
150-years-in-use very harming explosive systems (unclosed circuits),
and their replacement with a nature-coherent and
nature-complimenting technology of implosive systems. Explosion sets
chemo-electric, electro-magnetic and thermo-kinetic energy by the
hydrocarbon’s combustion and the subsequent exhaustion of emission
pressure, temperature and shock-waves to outside, while implosion
just tackles available ionosphere’s energy charge (which is always a
non-carbonic) into motion, or transmits it without losing or
releasing any harmful substances. (No wonder that even today, the
aborted development of e.g. anti-gravitational ship, flying disk,
etc., we attribute to Aliens or classify as the UFOs.)
[41]
It
reads that the universe performs as the (mindful) intentional
servomechanism of omnipresent instant transfers of
force/information, which is immensely unified, yet at the same time
infinitely diverse. (Or in other words; tones, frequencies and
harmonies that compose a symphony of one universal
/chemo-electrically charged/ energy ocean of consciousness in /a
wave function/ motion in which distances and causality no longer
exist.) Stepping closer to the Eastern philosophies of wholistic
comprehension, it strikingly opposes the scientific
(Newtown-Descartes-Darwin ‘Clockwork universe’) and the religious
(dualistic, binary-code-like) picture that the West embedded in its
institutions and determined actions in its long standing quest for
global domination.
[42]
Consciousness (including the time
symmetry reversibility) – at its most basic level – is nothing else
but a coherent light. That is why a stellar illumination, not only
the solar energy, matters so much. We all and all in us swim in a
sea of light.
[43]
Taken from: Deepak Chopra,
What makes Us Human?
(2011).
[44]
Those interested in numerology
would come to an interesting numerical interpretation of the Summit
Rio+20. Tentatively, it may follow: this time in Rio, it will be
+20; 2
(dualism, binary-code, either-or) faces 0
(wholeness, an omnipotent
egg-shape field of all potentialities).
[45]
Quoted from Schlitz, M. (1998)
On consciousness,
causation, and evolution,
Alternative Therapies 1998, Vol.4, No.6
September 11, 2016
Gong or Song from China’s Hong Kong?
Aine O’Mahony, Elodie Pichon
Aine O'Mahony has a bachelor in Law and Political Science
at the Catholic Institute of Paris and is currently a master's
student of Leiden University in the International Studies
programme.Contact:
aine-claire.nini@hotmail.fr
Elodie Pichon has a bachelor in Law and Political Science at
the Catholic Institute of Paris and is currently doing a MA in
Geopolitics, territory and Security at King's College London.
Contact : elodie.pichon@gmail.com
Following the recent abduction of five Hong Kong publishers, alleged
to have edited books disclosing “inconvenient truths” about the
Chinese government, thousands of people took to the streets of Hong
Kong to protest and fight for their right to have Freedom of
Expression, which had already been enshrined in the Fundamental Law
of Hong Kong. The post 80 generation wants to defend civil liberties
and young people are concerned by the fact that the Chinese grip on
the media could be the potential starting point for the end of the
“1 country, 2 system” policy, agreed on between China and Great
Britain for the transfer of sovereignty over this territory. Is it
reasonable to believe that this territory could become a simple
reproduction of China, as feared by the younger generation?
Read more on the next
page:.........
Augustus 2, 2016
Europe – Hell
is other people
(Europe after the Brexit, NATO summit in
Warsaw and Turkish geopolitical vertigo)
Anis H. Bajrektarevic
A
freshly released IMF’s World Economic Outlook brings no comforting
picture to anyone within the G-7, especially in the US and EU. The
Brexit after-shock is still to reverberate around.
In one other EXIT, Sartre’s Garcin famously says: ‘Hell is other
people’. Business of othering remains lucrative. The NATO summit in
Warsaw desperately looked for enemies. Escalation is the best way to
preserve eroded unity, requires the confrontational nostalgia
dictatum. Will the passionately US-pushed cross-Atlantic Free Trade
Area save the day? Or, would that Pact-push drag the things over the
edge of reinvigorating nationalisms, and mark an end of the
unionistic Europe?
Is the extended EU conflict with Russia actually a beginning of the
Atlantic-Central Europe’s conflict over Russia, an internalization
of mega geopolitical and geo-economic dilemma – who accommodates
with whom, in and out of the post-Brexit Union? Finally, does more
Ukrainian (Eastern Europe’s or MENA) calamities pave the road for a
new cross-continental grand accommodation, of either austerity-tired
France or über-performing Germany with Russia, therefore the end of
the EU? Southeast flank already enormously suffer. Hasty castling of
foes and friends caused colossal geopolitical vertigo in Turkey,
whose accelerated spin produces more and more victims.
Read more on the next
page:.........
July 19, 2016
Blair + NATO + ISIL =
Genocide:
Immaculate Conception of the Iraqi mess
By İLNUR ÇEVIK
Britain
is receiving blow after blow these days. First, the British people
decided to pull their country out of the European Union. This was
then followed by threats from the Scots and the Northern Irish to
pull out of the United Kingdom. Just as the dust started to settle
down, England bade farewell to Euro 2016 in France when they lost to
tiny Iceland, a result that was seen as a disaster equal to pulling
out of the EU... But that is not all.
Now a report prepared by Sir John Chilcot, an official inquiry, has
shattered British confidence and has shown that the invasion of Iraq
by the United States and Britain 13 years ago was a great mistake
based on lies and deception and has served to ruin Iraq, divide it
into pieces, push the Shiites into the laps of the Iranians, create
DAESH and eliminate Saddam Hussein. But for the one Saddam Hussein
that was removed, another 1,000 Saddam's have emerged. It has also
led to the groundwork that has pushed neighboring Syria into utter
chaos...
Then-U.S. President George W. Bush and then-British Prime Minister
Tony Blair today are trying to justify what they have done. Up to
now, nearly a million Iraqis have died because of the mess these two
created and nearly 5 million people have been displaced. The two
have being justifying themselves by saying Saddam was a tyrant and
had to be deposed of. But what they have created and the mess they
have left behind is unforgivable.
Read more on the next
page:.........
July 18, 2016
Turkey’s Strategic Reset: engagement instead of contention
By
Barçın Yinanç
'The
EU loves to portray itself as a pan-European project. However,
it stubbornly rejects and systematically demonises the only two
European countries that have steady economic growth, Russia and
Turkey. Is the EU on its way to end up as the League of Nations
– pretending to be universalistic project, but by excluding
major powers, derogating itself to the margins of history?’ –
asked prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic, well before the Brexit vote,
in his enlightening piece ‘Geopolitics of Technology’. What is
the new dynamics in this triangular equitation? Let’s examine
the Turkish take on this fundamental question.
Ever since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to
power, members of the Foreign Ministry have had ample
opportunity to witness the deeply-rooted relations established
between political Islamic movements all over the world and the
ruling party. One of the best one is with the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt. That’s why, it is not surprising to hear President R.T. Erdogan
put Egypt in a different category from Israel and Russia.
Read more on the next
page:.........
July 13, 2016
Summary of
INTERESTS & INFLUENCES OF
MAJOR EXTERNAL ACTORS IN CENTRAL ASIA
Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic & Samantha Brletich

Click to Picture for PDF-file or Text
 |
H. Bajrektarevic
Anis H. Bajrektarevic is a
Professor and a Chairperson for International Law and
Global Political studies, Vienna, Austria. He is editor
of the NY-based Addlton’s GHIR Journal (Geopolitics,
History and Intl. Relations), as well as the Senior
Editorial member of many specialized international
magazines, including the Canadian Energy Institute’s
Journal Geopolitics of Energy.
|
 |
SAMANTHA BRLETICH
Samantha Brletich, specializing
peace operations policy at George Mason University,
Arlington, VA, with a focus on Russia and Central Asia.
She is the prominent member of the Modern Diplomacy’s
Tomorrow’s People platform. Ms. Brletich is an employee
of the US Department of Defense.
|
JULY 4, 2016
IT law - a challenge of
dispute resolution
doc. dr Jasna Čošabić
IT
law or cyber law or internet law, is evolving in giant steps. On its
way, it has many challenges to meet and a lot of burdens to cope
with. Being a part of international law, it is though specific in
its nature, mode of implementation and protection. While the classic
international law deals with classic state territories, state
jurisdictions, with a clear distinction between national laws, the
IT law is uncertain about the state jurisdiction, earthbound
borders, rules and proceedings regarding any dispute arising on
internet.
However, with a fast development of information technology, the
number of legal contracts and businesses on internet rises,
requiring the fast response by legal order in terms of regulating
and protecting it.
From the time internet emerged, each entity operating on internet
provided for its own rules. With the IT becoming more complex and
demanding so were the rules. We therefore say that internet is
self-regulated, with no visible interference by state, apart from
criminal activities control.
Some authors even call the internet private legal order where
stateless justice1 apply. Justice usually needs a state, which is a
supreme authority, having the monopoly of violence, or the
legitimate use of physical force. But speaking in internet terms,
self-regulation has evolved, with the state interference being
mainly excluded.
Read more on the next
page:.........
JUNE 08, 2016
Pakistan in the US, the
US in Pakistan: Self-denial is the biggest threat to world peace
By Rakesh Krishnan SIMHA
One
of the ironies of being a Pakistani living abroad, especially in the
West, is having to pose as Indian. According to Asghar Choudhri, the
chairman of Brooklyn’s Pakistani American Merchant Association, a
lot of Pakistanis can’t get jobs after 9/11 and after the botched
Times Square bombing of 2010, it’s even worse. “They are now
pretending they are Indian so they can get a job,” he told a US wire
service.
That is because while Indians are highly integrated immigrants –
besides being the highest educated and best paid of all ethnic
groups in the US – Pakistanis have taken part in terrorist
activities in the very lands that gave them shelter. (Even the
frequent Gallup surveys conducted in the US, found out repeatedly
that the biggest threat to the international security and peace are:
nr. 3 Saudis; nr. 2 Pakistanis, and nr.1 – surprise, surprise – the
US itself.)
From Ramzi Yousef, who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 (8
years before Bin Laden) and is now serving a 240-year prison
sentence to Mir Aimal Kansi, who shot dead CIA agents and was later
executed by lethal injection, to Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square
“Idiot Bomber”, there is a long line of Pakistanis who have left a
trail of terror.
The San Bernardino, California, attack of December 2015 by a
Pakistani American couple was the most spectacular in recent times.
The husband was American-born raised and yet he chose to launch a
terror act against the people of the United States.
But while Pakistanis wear an Indian mask for Western consumption,
back home it’s business as usual.
Read more on the next
page:.........
JUNE 01, 2016
MUSEUM 'INVISIBLE' GENERATION
Writes: Dzalila Osmanovic-Muharemagic
Many
still remember a sign at the door of National Museum of Bosnia and
Herzegovina stating „THE MUSEUM IS CLOSED“, which for years only
bothered few of the conscientious. Recently the museum has been
reopened in silence and without much fanfare, as if still someone
wants the public to be unaware of the times when Bosnia was not
prostrated, when it taught the others of tolerance, while its men
and women lived and died for its every corner. Right after the
reopening an unexpected route led me to the Museum, where a
prophetic recollection from my childhood made me realize I belong to
an „invisible“ generation.
Long time ago, at the beginning of high school, some good teacher
considered it would be useful for high school students, the future
intellectuals (today mostly well-educated, unemployed young people
or doing a menial job in a foreign country) to visit the Museum,
that basic cultural institution. It was an interesting fieldtrip,
without too much work, a lot of photos and mingling. Great for us –
the high school rookies!
There we watched some old rocks, beautiful
exponents of folk garments and much more. We watched, yet we saw
nothing... We did not see, since we did not know what there was to
see, since the entire primary school we learned about great
adventures of Marco Polo, Columbus, French Revolution and Hitler.
Read more on the next
page:.........
May 18, 2016
Suicidal Nuclear Gambit on
Caucasus
(Game of Poker at
best, Game of Chess at worst, and neither option should be
celebrated)
By Petra Posega
Nuclear
security is seemingly in the vanguard of global attention, but the
large framework of international provisions is increasingly
perceived as a toothless tiger. In the contemporary age where
asymmetric threats to security are one of the most dangerous ones,
the time is high to mitigate the risk of rouge actors having
potential access to materials, necessary to develop nuclear weapons.
Nowhere is this urgency more pivotal than in already turbulent
areas, such as the South Caucasus. With many turmoil instabilities,
lasting for decades with no completely bulletproof conflict
resolution process installed, adding a threat of nuclear weapons
potential means creating a house of cards that can cause complete
collapse of regional peace and stability. That is precisely why
recently uncovered and reoccurring actions of Armenia towards the
goal of building its own nuclear capacity must be addressed more
seriously. They should also attract bolder response to ensure safety
of the region is sustained.
According to the report by Vienna-based nuclear watch-dog,
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Armenia has established
quite a record of illegal trafficking of nuclear and other
radioactive materials. There have been a couple of serious incidents
spanning from 1999 onward. A large number of reported incidents has
occurred on the country`s border with Georgia, tempting the IAEA to
conclude there is high probability that the so called Armenian route
does in fact exist. There is a further evidence to support this
assertion. There were an unusually high number of Armenians caught
in nuclear trafficking activities. Additionally, some of the
reported incidents that made their way to the official reports
suggested that the main focus of trafficking activities is in fact
smuggling of nuclear material that could be used for nuclear weapons
capabilities. There were also reports suggesting the trafficking of
other radioactive material that could be utilized for alternate
purposes, such as the building of a so called dirty bomb. Since the
stakes with nuclear weaponry are always high to the extreme, the
recognition of this threat must not be underrated and dismissed
easily.
Read more on the next
page:.........
May 18, 2016
I FREE myself from Facebook
By Rattana Lao
BANGKOK – It was sometimes ago that the New Yorker
featured a cartoon that went something like this: “With the
internet, you can be a dog behind a computer and nobody knows.”
That's
my thought on the internet in general and social media in
particular. Behind the masks of perfectly manicured life or perfect
make up, there are multiple truth, reality, flaws and imperfection.
I joined Facebook when I was doing my Masters of Science in
Development Studies at the London School of Economics and Political
Science – far away from my hometown glory of Bangkok, Thailand.
Although I have known about Facebook from my highschool roommate
when it was only accessible for IVY League students, I was not quite
excited about it. I thought to myself “who in their right mind
published their lives to the public?”
During the same time, the One Laptop Per Child policy was popular. I
remember attending several public forums whereby tech savvy
professionals tried to convince low-tech Development experts that
the internet is powerful and through it we can end world poverty.
Something like that.
Being an outgoing and outspoken introvert, if that makes sense, I
signed up for FB with an ambivalent feeling. On the one hand, I
wanted to keep in touch with my friends and family from afar – to
let them know how I was, what I ate, where I travelled to. On the
other hand, I was scared and anxious of the unintended consequences.
Well, given that my BFF called me “the most intense meaning making
machine,” I was not sure I could cope with the outflow of comments
from strangers about my life.
Read more on the next
page:.........
May 15, 2016
India’s Education – one view on Optimisation and
Outreach
Dr.Swaleha Sindhi
Introduction
In
the present era of globalization, organizations are expected to work
with a creative rather than a reactive perspective and grow to be
flexible, responsive and capable organizations in order to survive.
In the existing scenario people are exposed to diverse knowledge
through internet, there is much to learn and more to assimilate.
Senge’s (1990) model of the five disciplines of a learning
organization emphasizes on the concept of systems thinking, personal
mastery, mental models, building shared vision and team learning.
This points on continuous learning for individuals and
organizations, with a great stress on the idea of bringing change
with innovation and creativity. If the future organizations are
driven by individual and collaborative learning, it is advisable to
transform schools also into learning organizations, instead of
school education being restricted merely to the process of acquiring
facts and loads of numerical information to reproduce in examination
using rote learning methodologies (current scenario in Indian
schools).
In line with the needs of education system in India, schools should
become more effective learning organizations that ultimately
increase the leadership capacity and support the personal
development of every individual at the institution. In chalking out
the aims of education in India, Kothari commission report (1964-66)
stressed that ‘education has to be used as powerful instrument of
social economic and political change.
Read more on the next
page:.........
May 12, 2016
Hungry of Hungary – One (senti)mental journey
By Julia Suryakusuma
Some
days ago, I achieved historical continuity between Hungary and
Indonesia — well, at least in connection to my father and me.
How so?In the early 1960s, my father was assigned to set up the
Indonesian Embassy in Budapest. Indonesia had already established
diplomatic relations with Hungary in 1955, but did not actually have
a physical embassy.
During my father’s time there as chargé
d’affaires, he met with many high-ranking officials. Among the old
photos from those times, there is one of him shaking hands with
János Kádár, Hungary’s prime minister at the time. Kádár was PM from
1956 to 1988. Thirty-two years, just like Indonesia’s Soeharto.
As dad’s daughter, I was invited to a luncheon at the State Palace
on Feb. 1 — hosted by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo naturally — in
honor of Victor Orban, the current Hungarian prime minister who was
here for an official visit. I had my photo taken with him.
Cut-to-cut: in 1962 my dad with the then Hungarian PM, in 2016, me
with the current Hungarian PM.
While 54 years have lapsed,
my fond memories of Hungary have not. My father passed away in 2006,
so unfortunately he could not witness the historical continuity his
daughter created, albeit only as a snapshot (pun unintended!).
Read more on the next page:.........
April 26, 2016
450 Years of Jewish Life in Sarajevo
By
Mads Jacobsen
In this week's long
read, Mads Jacobsen explores the Jewish experience in
Bosnia-Herzegovina through the eyes of Sarajevo-born Rabbi Eliezer Papo.
The Ashkenazi Synagogue in Sarajevo (Foto: Mads H. Jacobsen)
“If you imagine Bosnia to be a piece of somun,
that piece of bread you eat during Ramadan, you
cannot say that Jews are the water of that
somun, nor can you say that they are the flour,
but you can certainly say that they are the
black seeds on the top of it. Now, could a somun
survive without it? Yes. Would it still be the
same somun? Certainly not. Jews are currently a
small percentage of the Bosnian population, but
they are an important part of the urban
population, and they have contributed a great
deal to the country. So, could Bosnia do it
without Jews? Yes. Would it still be the same
Bosnia? Certainly not”, explained Rabbi Eliezer
Papo in an interview with the Post-Conflict
Research Center.
This year, the Jewish community in Sarajevo
celebrated its 450th anniversary by hosting an
international conference in the Ashkenazi
Synagogue dedicated to folklore, linguistics,
history and the relationship between the Jewish
community and other communities. Following this
anniversary, Mads Hoeygaard Jacobsen – an intern
at the Post-Conflict Research Center – had the
chance to interview Sarajevo-born Rabbi Eliezer
Papo to talk about the Jewish experience in
Bosnia-Herzegovina during the different epochs
of the country’s history.
These mixed marriages proved important in
Sarajevo during the Bosnian War from 1992 to
1995, since the Jewish community of around 2,000
people8 was the only one equally
related to the three combating groups.
Read more on the next
page:.........
Mads Jacobsen Mads is an intern at PCRC. Mads Jacobsen is from Denmark and is currently
pursuing his Master's degree in 'Development and International Relations' at
Aalborg University...
April 24, 2016
Is Caucasus the next Syria - Don’t forget OSCE
By Aleksandra Krstic
The
recent all-shoot out in Azerbaijan between the ethnic Armenians and
Azerbaijani forces brought yet another round of casualties,
psychological traumas and property destructions. Sudden and severe
as it was, the event sent its shock waves all over Caucasus and well
beyond. Is Caucasus receiving the ‘residual heat’ from the boiling
MENA? Is this a next Syria? Is a grand accommodation pacific
scenario possible? Or will it be more realistic that the South
Caucasus ends up violently torn apart by the grand compensation that
affects all from Afghanistan up to the EU-Turkey deal?
Most observes would fully agree that for such
(frozen) conflicts like this between Azerbaijan and Armenia,
mediation and dialogue across the conflict cycle have no
alternative. Further on, most would agree that the OSCE
(Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) with its Minsk
Group remains both the best suited FORA as well as the only
international body mandated for the resolution of the conflict.
However, one cannot escape the feeling that despite
more than 20 years of negotiations, this conflict remains
unresolved. What is the extent of the OSCE failure to effectively
utilize existing conflict resolution and post-conflict
rehabilitation tools?
The very mandate of the Co-Chairmen of the OSCE Minsk
Group is based on CSCE Budapest Summit document of 1994, which tasks
them to conduct speedy negotiations for the conclusion of a
political agreement on the cessation of the armed conflict, the
implementation of which will eliminate major consequences of the
conflict and permit the convening of the Minsk Conference. In
Budapest, the participating States have reconfirmed their commitment
to the relevant Resolutions of the United Nations Security Council
and underlined that the co-Chairmen should be guided in all their
negotiating efforts by the OSCE principles and agreed mandate, and
should be accountable to its Chairmanship and the Permanent Council
(PC).
Read more on the next
page:.........
Aleksandra Krstic
, studied in
Belgrade (Political Science) and in Moscow (Plekhanov’s IBS).
Currently, a post-doctoral researcher at the Kent University in
Brussels (Intl. Relations). Specialist for the MENA-Balkans frozen
and controlled conflicts.
Contact: alex-alex@gmail.com
April
20, 2016
PRIVACY I(N)T CONTEXT
doc. dr. Jasna Cosabic
The
right to privacy, or the right to respect for private life, as the
European Convention on Human Rights guarantees it, has been affected
by the IT growth era. Privacy has long been protected, but will face
a new dimension of protection for the generations to come. The right
to respect for private life is not an absolute one, and may have a
different feature in different context.
By Niemitz v. Germany judgment (1992) the European Court on Human
Rights ('the ECtHR') included the right to connect with other
individuals into the notion of private life, saying that it would be
too restrictive to limit the notion of an 'inner circle' to personal
life and exclude therefrom entirely the outside world not
encompassed within that circle. The right to communicate was thus
inscerted into the the privacy context.
But the extent of communication and technologies which enable it
signifficantly changed since.
Few decades ago, it mainly consisted of personal communication,
communication by conventional letters and phone communication. At
the time the Convention was adopted in the mid last century, there
was no internet, not even mobile/cell phones, nor personal
computers. The feature of privacy protection was much more simple
then today.
Now, when we approach the rule of IoT (internet of things)
communication, not only do people communicate, but 'things' as well.
The subject of that 'non-human' communication may also be private
data of individuals. At the same time, the individual, human
communication became more simple, available at any time, and
versatile by its means.
Read more on the next
page:.........
doc. dr. Jasna Čošabić professor of IT law and EU law at Banja Luka College, Bosnia and Herzegovina
jasnacosabic@live.com
April 18, 2016
Saudi – Iranian future: 3 games – 3 scenarios
By Manal Saadi
There
is no need to argue on Saudi Arabia and Iran as the two biggest
regional powers in the Gulf, the rising tension between the two
countries who are engaged in proxy wars in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and
somehow Bahrein had installed a climate of Cold War.2.
How did we get there?
Saudi Arabia existed since 1932 as a Sunni country and the
birthplace of Islam. Its history of creation is so unique,
mesmerizing and fascinating. Iran, has a glorious past, with various empires that conquered the
Arab-Islamic world at certain pe-riod of time. While the Shah was in power, Iran’s relations with the Arab Gulf
States were normalized, Iran’s navy used to act as the policeman of
the gulf. The situation has changed when the Iranian Islamic
revolution occurred in 1979, with consequences on both countries and
on their relationships. Iran’s Ayatollah wanted to export their
respective model and undermine Saudi Arabia that Iranian officials
see as corrupt and unworthy due to its relation with the United
States and the West. The Shia country is also supporting Shia
communities in the Gulf which is seen as a direct threat to Saudi
Arabia.
Read more on the next
page:.........
Manal Saadi, of Saudi-Moroccan origins, is a postgraduate
researcher in International Relations and Diplomacy at the
Geneva-based UMEF University. She was attached to the Permanent Mission of Morocco to the UNoG and
other Geneva-based IOs, as well as to the Permanent Mission of the
GCC to the UN in Geneva.
April 4, 2016
Near East and the
Nearer Brussles Euro(h)ope possible ?
Anis H. Bajrektarevic
There
is a claim constantly circulating the EU: ‘multiculturalism is
dead in Europe’. Dead or maybe d(r)ead?... That much comes from
a cluster of European nation-states that love to romanticize – in a
grand metanarrative of dogmatic universalism – their
appearance as of the coherent Union, as if they themselves lived a
long, cordial and credible history of multicul-turalism. Hence, this
claim and its resonating debate is of course false. It is also
cynical because it is purposely deceiving. No wonder, as the
conglomerate of nation-states/EU has silently handed over one of its
most important debates – that of European anti-fascistic identity,
or otherness – to the wing-parties. This was repeatedly followed by
the selective and contra-productive foreign policy actions of the
Union over the last two decades.
Twin Paris shootings and this fresh Brussels horror,
terrible beyond comprehension, will reload and overheat those
debates. However, these debates are ill conceived, resting from the
start on completely wrong and misleading premises. Terrorism,
terror, terrorism!! – But, terror is a tactics, not an ideology.
How can one conduct and win war on tactics? – it is an oxymoron. (In
that case, only to win are larger budgets for the homeland security
apparatus on expenses of our freedoms and liberties, like so many
times before.)
Read more on the next
page:.........
Anis H. Bajrektarevic,
contact:
anis@bajrektarevic.eu
Author is chairperson and professor in
international law and global political studies, Vienna, Austria. He
authored three books: FB – Geopolitics of Technology
(published by the New York’s Addleton
Academic Publishers); Geopolitics –
Europe 100 years later
(DB, Europe), and the just released Geopolitics – Energy – Technology
by the German publisher LAP. No
Asian century is his forthcoming book, scheduled for later this year.
24 MAR 2016
Poles Saving Jews in
Bangkok: History Lesson for Humanity
by Rattana Lao
BANGKOK –
Polish,
Israeli and Thai diplomats, academics and students gathered together
to listen and learn about the courage of Polish people saving the
Jews during the Second World War.
Chulalongkorn
University hosted “The Good Samaritans of Markowa” exhibition to
honor the innocent and brave Polish families in Markowa who risked
their lives saving the Jews from Nazi extermination. The event took
place in Bangkok to celebrate the 40th year of lasting
friendship between Poland and Thailand.
During the course of World War II, more than 50,000 Jews were saved
by Polish people. Each Jewish survivor needed to change their
shelter at least 7 times and required as many as 10 people to be
involved in the process.
Irena Sandler, a Polish nurse, was one of the brave Poles who saved
at least 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto. At the end of the
War, 6,600 Polish people were awarded with the Israeli Righteous
Amongst the Nation. However, not every brave Pole survived
Nazi capture. Approximately, 1,000 to 2,000 Poles were executed as
punishment to save the Jews.
The brutality of War took away more than 6 millions Jewish lives and
has inflicted deep wounds to those who have survived. The Ulma
Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in World War II in Markowa is one
of the Museums established to offer a place of solace and for those
who are left behind to come to term with this atrocity.
Understanding the complexity of the Holocaust has far reaching
ramification not only to those directly affected, but also to
students and public who live world apart and far removed from it.

Why?
Read more on the next
page:.........
The first step for Thai students is to get the facts right.
Hitler is not a Hero and the Nazi is not a symbol of democracy.
24.03.2016
Bosnia and the first
circle of hell
Gerald Knaus
In the first half of the 1990s, Bosnians found themselves in the
deepest circles of hell, in a world of war, genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Following the Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995 Bosnians were able to escape war,
but have since remained trapped in a different European underworld: isolated,
looked down upon, seen as hopeless and treated as such.
In Inferno, the first book of his Divine Comedy, Dante describes his journey
through nine circles of hell. The Bosnian predicament brings to mind the first
circle of Dante's inferno, Limbo, which hosts "virtuous pagans struck with grief
from a lack of God's presence." Pagans had the misfortune to be born at the
wrong time and in the wrong place. They might be good people but, unbaptized,
they could not enter purgatory. Paradise is forever closed, not because of their
deeds, but because of who they are. It is time for Bosnia to be allowed to
escape from Limbo. A new ESI report sets out how:
ESCAPING THE FIRST CIRCLE OF HELL
or
The secret behind Bosnian reforms
One popular idea about Bosnia and Herzegovina among European
observers is that Newton's first law of motion applies to its politics: this law
says that an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside
force. For Bosnian politics, that outside force has to be the international
community.
Read more on the next
page:.........
24.03.2016
PUBLICATIONS: 2016
EU
Reloaded? - by Dr. Peter Jankowitsch
DMCA Abuse: How corporations are using US copyright law to harass and
silence individuals - Murray Hunter
Italy
and Egypt: from Regeni to Libya, the difficult path towards
normalization - Daniele Scalea
BiH
2016 local election: Dodik's referendum –opening Pandora's box
in the Balkans?”
Geopolitics of Climate Change: Future of Tao and Quantum
Buddhism - Anis H. Bajrektarevic
Gong
or Song from China’s Hong Kong? - Aine O’Mahony, Elodie Pichon
Europe – Hell is other people - (Europe after the Brexit, NATO
summit in Warsaw and Turkish geopolitical vertigo) - Anis H.
Bajrektarevic
Blair
+ NATO + ISIL = Genocide: Immaculate Conception of the Iraqi
mess - By İLNUR ÇEVIK
Turkey’s Strategic Reset: engagement instead of contention - By
Barçın Yinanç
Summary of INTERESTS & INFLUENCES OF MAJOR EXTERNAL ACTORS IN
CENTRAL ASIA - Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic & Samantha Brletich
IT
law - a challenge of dispute resolution - doc. dr Jasna Čošabić
Pakistan in the US, the US in
Pakistan: Self-denial is the biggest threat to world peace - By
Rakesh Krishnan SIMHA
MUSEUM 'INVISIBLE' GENERATION - Writes: Dzalila
Osmanovic-Muharemagic
Suicidal Nuclear Gambit on Caucasus - Petra Posega
I
FREE myself from Facebook - By Rattana Lao
India’s Education – one view on Optimisation and Outreach -
Dr.Swaleha Sindhi
Hungry of Hungary – One (senti)mental journey - By Julia
Suryakusuma
450
Years of Jewish Life in Sarajevo - By Mads Jacobsen
PRIVACY I(N)T CONTEXT - doc. dr. Jasna Cosabic
Saudi
– Iranian future: 3 games – 3 scenarios - By Manal Saadi
Near East and the Nearer Brussles Euro(h)ope possible? - Anis H.
Bajrektarevic
Poles
Saving Jews in Bangkok: History Lesson for Humanity - by Rattana
Lao
Bosnia and the first circle of hell - Gerald Knaus
Mongolia and the New Russian Oil Diplomacy - By Samantha
Brletich
Noah, Peter Pan and the Sleeping Beauty (Europe – Identity
Imagined) - Anis H. Bajrektarevic
Key to Stop Refugee Flows: Unique higher education programme for
Conflict zones - Prof. Dr. DJAWED SANGDEL
Quantum Islam: Towards a new worldview - Murray Hunter and Azly
Rahman
Currency dictatorship – the struggle to end it - by Rakesh
Krishan Simha
Creative Economy and the bases of UNCTAD’s Creative Economy
Programme as instrument for growth and development - by
Giuliano_Luongo_200
info@orbus.be
www.orbus.be

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Maasmechelen Village

Maasmechelen Village


Adria


BALKAN AREA


prof. dr. Anis Bajrektarevic
Editor - Geopolitics, History, International Relations (GHIR) Addleton Academic
Publishers - New YorK
Senior Advisory board member, geopolitics of energy Canadian energy research
institute - ceri, Ottawa/Calgary
Advisory Board Chairman Modern Diplomacy & the md Tomorrow's people platform
originator
Head of mission and department head - strategic studies on Asia
Professor and Chairperson Intl. law & global pol. studies

Critical Similarities and Differences in SS of Asia and Europe - Prof.
Anis H. Bajrektarevic

MENA Saga and Lady Gaga - (Same dilemma from the MENA) - Anis H. Bajrektarevic

![Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Assos. Prof.[1] Nguyen Linh[2]](images/Prof_Dr._Nguyen_Anh_Tuan_140.jpg)
HE ONGOING PUBLIC DEBT CRISIS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: IMPACTS ON AND LESSONS
FOR VIETNAM - Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Assos. Prof.[1] Nguyen Linh[2]


Carla BAUMER
Climate
Change and Re Insurance: The Human Security Issue SC-SEA Prof. Anis
Bajrektarevic & Carla Baumer

Igor Dirgantara
(Researcher and Lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Politics,
University of Jayabaya)


Peny Sotiropoulou
Is
the ‘crisis of secularism’ in Western Europe the result of multiculturalism?


Dr. Emanuel L. Paparella
A Modest “Australian” Proposal to Resolve our Geo-Political Problems
Were the Crusades Justified? A Revisiting - Dr. Emanuel L. Paparella


Alisa
Fazleeva earned an MA in International Relations from the University of East
Anglia in Norwich, United Kingdom in 2013. Her research interests include
foreign policy decision-making, realism and constructivism, and social
psychology and constructivism.


Corinna Metz
is an independent researcher specialized in International Politics and Peace
& Conflict Studies with a regional focus on the Balkans and the Middle East.

Patricia Galves
Derolle
Founder of Internacionalista
Săo Paulo, Brazil
Brazil – New Age


Dimitra Karantzeni
The
political character of Social Media: How do Greek Internet users perceive and
use social networks?


Michael Akerib
Vice-Rector
SWISS UMEF UNIVERSITY


Petra Posega
is a master`s degree student on the University for Criminal justice and Security
in Ljubljana. She obtained her bachelor`s degree in Political Science- Defense
studies.
Contact:
posegap@live.com


Samantha Brletich, George Mason University School of Policy, Government, and
Intl. Relations She focuses on Russia and Central Asia. Ms. Brletich is an
employee of the US Department of Defense.

Interview on HRT-Radio
Prof. dr. Anis Bajrektarević


Dr Filippo ROMEO,


Julia Suryakusuma
is the outspoken Indonesian thinker,
social-cause fighter and trendsetter. She is the author of Julia’s Jihad.
Contact:
jsuryakusuma@gmail.com




Mads Jacobsen
Mads is an intern at PCRC. Mads Jacobsen is from Denmark and is currently
pursuing his Master's degree in 'Development and International Relations' at
Aalborg University...


Dzalila Osmanovic-Muharemagic
University of Bihac, Faculty of Education,
Department of English Language and Literature - undergraduate
University of Banja Luka, Faculty of Philology, Department of English Language
and Literature - graduate study


Rakesh Krishnan Simha
New Zealand-based journalist and foreign affairs analyst. According to him, he
writes on stuff the media distorts, misses or ignores.
Rakesh started his career in 1995 with New Delhi-based Business World magazine,
and later worked in a string of positions at other leading media houses such as
India Today, Hindustan Times, Business Standard and the Financial Express, where
he was the news editor.
He is the Senior Advisory Board member of one of the fastest growing Europe’s
foreign policy platforms: Modern Diplomacy.


Damiel Scalea
Daniele Scalea, geopolitical
analyst, is Director-general of IsAG (Rome Institute of Geopolitics) and Ph.D.
Candidate in Political studies at the Sapienza University, Rome. Author of three
books, is frequent contributor and columnist to various Tv-channels and
newspapers. E-mail:
daniele.scalea@gmail.com

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