Human Wrongs Watch
By Antonio C. S. Rosa**, editor, TRANSCEND Media Service — Interview conducted on the occasion of IPRA’s 50th anniversary celebration at the Istanbul Conference, Turkey, August 11-15, 2014.
Q: Prof. Galtung, please compare IPRA’s relevance, impact and consequence in 1964 and 50 years later in 2014. What have been its influence and concrete achievements?
JG: I do not think IPRA as such has impact, but it has impact on participants from all over the world, and they may have impact, academically, in NGOs, in some case in foreign offices.
Q: What are the affinities between Peace Research and Conflict Resolution theories and practices? Their impact on the world both as a whole, upon leaders and people?
JG: There are many roads to peace, like to health; better travel all of them! Conflict resolution is one, so is reconciliation, so is a peace culture and many others. But conflict resolution has the advantage that if well done it can have immediate impact: conflict solved, less frustration, less aggression, less violence, more peace; from one day to the other. At the marital level, from one minute to the next.