Comment archive

Friday, 2 Sept 2022
A Painful Dialogue with the Taliban

A year has passed since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. The number of lives lost due to war has fallen drastically. But the Taliban’s dismantling of democracy, their gross breaches of human rights, their exclusion of women from education and work, and their hosting of al-Qaeda and other terror ...

Tuesday, 10 Mar 2020
A Youth Perspective on Youth Participation and Inclusion in the Middle East

Can we improve democracy and promote peace by becoming better at including youth and create spaces for youth participation in political processes? Last week I had the great honor of representing Norwegian youth on a panel discussion about this very topic during a seminar hosted by PRIO during the royal state visit ...

Wednesday, 28 Jun 2017
Archetypal Enemies Exist in All Religions

Some religious leaders use language which others use to justify terror. These leaders should instead take responsibility for teaching people how to critically interpret religious texts. “The Day of Judgement will not come about until you fight the Jews. The Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and ...

Wednesday, 29 Jun 2016
Interfaith Dialogue can Help Build Peace

Interfaith dialogue is a necessary aid in conflicts involving religion. Some years ago, many Western social scientists were claiming that religion was a dying phenomenon. Such assertions were part of an arrogant assumption that the entire world would soon come to resemble the north-western corner of Europe. In Eastern Europe, ...

Thursday, 10 Dec 2015
Dialogue is Not Enough

Why did Tunisia succeed in reaching a compromise that led to democratic development, while other countries in the region have failed? The answer does not lie in the large numbers of activists and demonstrators. There were also massive crowds protesting against the regimes in countries such as Egypt and Yemen. ...

Wednesday, 9 Dec 2015
National Dialogues as Self-Mediation Mechanisms

In the last century, peace was far more likely the product of victory on the battlefield than a negotiated settlement. From 1940 until 2002, the world witnessed more than 370 state-based conflicts. At any point in time over the last decade, the world hosted nearly 30 armed conflicts simultaneously — ...