HUMAN WRONGS WATCH

Human Wrongs Watch

By Bunny McDiarmid*

29 August, 2017 (Greenpeace)*

Looking back, one of the key moments that was to define both my professional and personal path was the moment I stepped onto the small atoll of Rongelap, in the Pacific Ocean.

It was 17 May 1985 and I was 24 years old.

At first glance, it appeared as if I had reached paradise; sandy beaches with coconut trees, water so crystal clear you could see the bottom, meters deep. And yet nothing was as it should be.

Human Wrongs Watch

By Johan Galtung*

28 August 2017  – TRANSCEND Media Service — These are the goals of the United Nations; the Hardanger Academy in little Jondal, Norway (population ca.1150) made them three foci. The problem arose: what do they have in common? Are they three aspects of the same thing? If so, what is that “thing”?

Johan Galtung

Four ways of trying to answer have been identified and explored. Four because of four ways of approaching social reality, through:

• actors, with intentions-capabilities-contexts, with their needs;
• culture, defining the true-good-right-beautiful-sacred;
• structure, the patterns of individual and collective interaction;
• nature, evolving to higher complexity, with diversity and symbiosis.

All four have surface and deeper aspects.