Atle Hetland<\/p>\n
Sometimes, researchers in the social sciences, and also in other fields, play significant roles, not only in academia, for students and colleagues within their ivory towers, but also for the general public, even in concrete and practical politics, if they listen. Today, I shall draw attention to two unique men in the social sciences, notably pro\u00adfessors Ottar Brox (1932-2024) and Johan Galtung (1930-2024), both Norwegians with theories, mod\u00adels and practice that can be applied to the wider world. They passed away at 91 and 93, respectively, earlier this month. We mourn their passing, but we should also celebrate their lives and be grateful for their many books and articles, and their interviews and talks on radio and TV, nowadays available on YouTube, in Norwegian and English.
\nProfessor Brox was the more local of the two, always looking at issues from be\u00adlow, listening to ordinary people and con\u00adsidering their solutions, perhaps with some inputs from academics and experts. He served as a member of the Norwegian parliament for one term, for a leftist party in the 1970s, but he said that social scien\u00adtists and other academics were not nec\u00adessarily better politicians than others. He also suggested that if an academic tried to run farming and fishing businesses based on bookish knowledge, he would soon go bankrupt, because there is so much more to it all, which one cannot learn from books and in the auditoriums, only from real experience. Brox expressed great re\u00adspect for the complicated work of poli\u00adticians, farmers, fishermen, and for that matter, people in other jobs and life situ\u00adations. I wish we all carry with us his les\u00adsons and realize that hierarchical arro\u00adgance does not help in solving problems and creating harmony.
\nProfessor Galtung was the more inter\u00adnational of the two. Yet, he also had a lo\u00adcal foundation for his theories, empir\u00adical data and anecdotes. He drew on in his work with the first Norwegian devel\u00adopment aid project, the Indo-Norwegian Fisheries Development Project in Kera\u00adla, India, from 1952. His famous centre-periphery theory is in support of ordi\u00adnary and poor people. His advice about how solve wars and conflicts are about including ordinary people, underlining that durable solutions can only be found if the two or more parties of men and women truly listen to the opponents, not describing one side as good and the oth\u00ader as bad, but transcending stereotypes and stencil analysis. In one radio inter\u00adview I recently listened to with Galtung, he asked if anyone had in honesty tried to understand what the Taliban really want, not only saying that their ideas are wrong. About the ever-lasting Israel-Pal\u00adestine conflict, he said that there could not be real peace if they both put walls around their territories and values, but only if they accept and tolerate each oth\u00ader and try to live together as true neigh\u00adbours. As it is now, or some years ago when he spoke about it, Galtung thought that avoiding direct war and conflict, would only be possible if the United Na\u00adtions, or another multilateral force, was placed long-term to keep peace in Isra\u00adel and Palestine. But that wouldn\u2019t real\u00adly be peace and it is no way for children to grow up and people to live together in the long run. Hence, new approach\u00ades and negotiations that transcend old ways must be found.
\nProfessor Brox discussed these issues in his several books, taught students and colleagues about the curse of poor peo\u00adple in these and other remote areas. The riches are there, but it is not possible for the people to make use since they lack capital. Sometimes, rich capitalists from the south of Norway or from foreign countries, invest, leading to some jobs for locals, but the main profit is taken out, and there is uncertainty about how long the outsiders will stay. If they can earn higher profits elsewhere the capi\u00adtalists have no loyalty to stay, leaving the locals even worse off than before.
\nCourtesy
\nSome of the issues are specific to North-Norway, but most of them are also relevant to other remote areas, and to countries anywhere in the world where the centre dominates the periphery, as it does everywhere. But then, we should also remember that it is the resources from the periphery that often develops the centre, be it at national or interna\u00adtional levels. Ottar Brox\u2019 best known book came already in 1966, entitled \u2018Hva skjer in Nord-Norge?\u2019 In English, \u2018What Hap\u00adpens in North-Norway?\u2019 He was a young man then. Perhaps new ideas come best and sharpest from young people?
\nJohan Galtung is the founder of peace research as an academic discipline. He was one of the key academics, with his wife that time, sociologist and politi\u00adcian Ingrid Eide, who in 1959 founded the International Peace Research Insti\u00adtute Oslo (PRIO). He developed the cen\u00adtre-periphery theory, as I already men\u00adtioned above, which is an analytical tool in studying remote areas and develop\u00ading countries, indeed in understanding imperialism. The core of the theory is simply that the powerful people, institu\u00adtions and capital in the centre cooperate with the same at higher and lower levels. That means that the industrialised coun\u00adtries in what we nowadays call the Glob\u00adal North link up with their rich partners in the Global South. The centre main\u00adtains all the power, sets all the terms and draws all the profits. The periph\u00adery not only stays poor, but it becomes poorer than before as its resources are exploited and taken away from them. True, in the periphery, the centre\u2019s part\u00adners there benefit, too, at least to some degree, so they will stay loyal to the real centre\u2019s forces. Are they traitors? Yes, they are, but that is how the world\u2019s eco\u00adnomic system and competition work; the strong wins while the poor looses, and those who already have, will be given more. Galtung\u2019s centre-periphery theory was first published in PRIO\u2019s \u2018Journal of Peace Research\u2019 in 1971.
\nBefore I end my article, let me men\u00adtion that Galtung visited Afghanistan and Pakistan several times in the past de\u00adcades, being healthy until a year\u2019s time ago. He was a close friend of the former UN (FAO\/IFAD) staff member and top Pakistani politician Sartaj Aziz (1929-2024), who passed away last month. I think the two had met as students in the USA in their youthful years. I should per\u00adhaps add that Galtung was an admirer of Americans but a critique of the super\u00adpower\u2019s international role and dominant policies. He said, the UN should get out of America, and America should get out of the UN. When I was a young student, we enjoyed listening to such sharp state\u00adments, fun and analytical at the same time, albeit controversial. Galtung wrote more than a hundred books, and proba\u00adbly thousands of articles, so we can still read and learn from his universally rel\u00adevant thinking for a long time to come.
\nThe writer is a senior Norwegian social scientist with experience from university, diplomacy and development aid. He can be reached at atlehetland@yahoo.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Atle Hetland Sometimes, researchers in the social sciences, and also in other fields, play significant roles, not only in academia, for students and colleagues within their ivory towers, but also for the general public, even in concrete and practical politics, if they listen. Today, I shall draw attention to two unique men in the social […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[12984],"class_list":{"0":"post-388965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-article","7":"tag-atle-hetland"},"yoast_head":"\n