Abstract
This chapter links analyses on environmental deterioration with peace efforts in a wider cultural context where an economic model based on wasteful fossil energy use, social inequality, consumerism, fashion, and growth concentrated within small elites has brought both the planet and society as a whole to its limits of survival. This has affected regions, cultures, and social classes differently; especially Southern countries and vulnerable groups have been the major victims. Since the late 1980’s, due to increasingly adverse socio-economic, political and natural environments, women, indigenous peoples, the poor and marginalized urban grass root movements (Schteingart 2006) have increasingly been confronted with a ‘survival dilemma’ (see Brauch 2004 and chap. 42 in this vol.) which has forced them to develop specific ‘survival strategies’ (Oswald 1991).
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This agreement ended the bloody Thirty Years War (1618–1648) in Central Europe. Due to the complexity of the conflict and the power interests of Emperor Ferdinand II and his son Ferdinand III, and his allies on the one side and the kings of France and Sweden on the other side, the negotiation process changed the existing European power structure. Besides a general and unlimited amnesty, the consequences were the end of the community of nations under the control of the pope and the emperor, and the birth of a modern system of states. As the Habsburgs were defeated, they expanded their imperial interests into the Balkans. As religious unity under the pope had now become unfeasible (what undoubtedly was a victory for the Protestants) a new international norm, understood as the principle of equilibrium, was developed. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) opened the way for political, ideological and religious tolerance, thus avoiding that imperial forces could intervene into the internal affairs of a constituted state or monarchy. But since 1648 it became soon evident that the powerful dictate, the fulfillment or failure of agreements were substituting the ideological fight of the 16th century with territorial ambitions in the 17th and 18th centuries (Lopez 2004: 892).
See David Orton’s 2006 campaign “Make Peace with ‘Nature’ for voting green in Canada”, at: <http:// home.ca.inter.net/~ greenweb/GW63-Path.html>.
There is a direct link between money laundering during the dirty war in Argentina and Chile and women trafficking and pornography in which a wide group of politicians is involved. Similar criminal cases have been reported in Mexico where governors and politicians have been accused of pederasty (Cacho 2006).
Angola had multiple peace efforts but the illegal market with diamonds, the oil interests with private armies and illegal arm trafficking reactivated the hostilities. The arms came from the US, Russia, Great Britain, France and others using the illegal triangle after the Security Council had declared an arms embargo. The Iran-Iraq war (1980–1988) is another case where the Reagan Administration supported Saddam Hussein against Iran with satellite images and objected to sanctions by the US Congress (Brauch 2003b).
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© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Spring, Ú.O. (2008). Peace and Environment: Towards a Sustainable Peace as Seen From the South. In: Brauch, H.G., et al. Globalization and Environmental Challenges. Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Security and Peace, vol 3. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75977-5_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75977-5_5
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