20.000 Kilometers of Travel – Observations on Gratitude – A Story About Christmas and the New Year

December 29, 2023December 29, 2023 / stefanfeller / Leave a comment

_{On the featured picture: Tigger}

Of course I am privileged, I thought when I was enjoying my second cup of coffee outside of my caravan in Berlin, looking back on one month of travel. I racked up roughly 20.000 kilometers, or 12.500 miles, I stayed in Serbia, Canada, Kosovo, Albania, and Germany, I passed through Hungary and Slovakia, I slept over in the Czech Republic. I sat on planes and I traveled for many days with my campervan. Except for the Canada travel by air, my faithful cat friend Tigger accompanied me everywhere.

Christian Christmas celebrations are over, the Orthodox community is still looking forward to it January 06. These are the days in between. New Year’s Eve is quickly advancing. Winter solistice has just passed less than two weeks ago, sun is coming up late in the morning and darkness settles in at a time when I would just go for another afternoon swim during summertime, with six to seven more hours of daylight to go. Right now, forest paths are muddy, nature is in its deepest state of hibernation, leaves on the ground are wet and often greyish. Road surfaces barely dry up. On my way through Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic I passed through heavy blizzards and made myself comfy for the night in a parking lot thickly covered with snow. Passing Prague, the snow all but disappeared. Traveling northbound through Dresden to Berlin just the occasional heavy rain, strong winds, grey nature. One of my self-made worries which I had tried to keep at bay for weeks was related to the consequences of a winter storm which had passed through Berlin early December. Loads of snow had brought the tent down which I have attached to my caravan. There was nothing I could do from thousands of kilometers away, except for a mental exercise not to allow my crazy and often restless mind to plunge into another reason for worrying just about everything. When I arrived in Berlin, removing the puddles of water from the tent’s collapsed roof and putting new pressure on the pylon-system stabilising the tent was all I had to do. Five minutes work, and the tent was up again. Weeks of worry were proven unnecessary. My mind was desperate to find a new thing to worry about, and I tried to keep that at bay.

At the beginning of December I prepared for my travel to Toronto. Going through errands which always were a ton easier than they felt, I followed my usual morning routine of having a breakfast in my favorite street cafe in Belgrade. I listened to my neighbors who started to be occupied by the upcoming Serbian elections. Some of them muttered that they would hope for a change in the political system, voices filled with frustration. One of the waiters in my cafe, conversing with me in English with a thick Russian accent, was asking me how life is in Germany. Expressing hope that somehow, some day, he would also end up in Germany. Less frustration in his voice, more something like the hopes that you express when you have a dream. A life dream, since people like this waiter are very young. They know from which circumstances they are coming from, and the future is better anywhere else.

Sometimes I jokingly say that I am an old fart. Which is true to some extent. Physically I am approaching 66 years of age. Yet, the way of life I have choosen, it keeps me agile. For everything in life there is a bill to be paid, the currency in which I pay my dues is restlessness and the constant thinking about how long I will still be able to do this, and what will happen when I will get really old. Remaining as much as possible in a state of gratitude allows me to see how artificial this constant battle is, my mind telling me what I don’t have. When I manage to see, instead, what is given to me, restlessness and dissatisfaction vanish. At least for a while. When I look around myself, I see many people being affected by the same thing which I cope with: I always compare what I have with what my mind is telling me I should have. I compare my current situation with my past, my mind selectively produces memories of residences, houses, fancy cars with a driver, important jobs with status and acknowledgement, business class flights and five-star hotels. Or I compare what I have with what I would like to enjoy like others. When I allow it, it creates a near-constant state of dissatisfaction. In that state I compare my simple apartment with old furniture with the houses my brothers have, or I used to have. In that state I don’t see the freedom of my vagabond life with a campervan and a caravan, instead I obsess about the next better option, the next better thing to have, another job giving me more financial leverage. When I listen to people who look at my lifestyle with admiration, I see that everything comes from comparison, keeping everyone out of the moment. When I then manage to look back with honesty, I remember how unhappy I was. How much I sedated myself, and how unavailable for really meaningful relationships I was.

It feels like we want to constantly compare our own situation with that of others. And since months now, I am trying to find an answer to the question whether there are psychological limits to the ability of feeling empathy for others: The onslaught of news about people who have not even a tiny fraction of what any of us has, it leads to an increasing number of conversations where I hear “But what about me and my needs?” A question which I hear in multiple variations, sometimes with an expression of helpless shame for uttering such an emotion, and sadness, sometimes with an expression of anger and fury. Is it possible that in a situation of “information overload” related to the suffering of other people, a shut-down mechanism emerges which makes people feel: “I can’t listen to this anymore“? Is it possible that, in order to internally justify such a thought then, people must find an argument like “But look around here! There is so much broken here, in my society, why are politicians not taking care of this“? Bold forms of this argument include the exclamation of desperation by saying “We can not always only help others!“

Is it possible that this presents a platform for right-wing forces to run this meme, and to wreak havoc on the ability to empathise with others, by playing the selfish card, a nationalist card, a card where they fuel negative emotions?

When I have conversations about this with my friends in my network, we quickly identify the gasoline which fuels this fire: Egotism. Because it is also correct to say, for example: Germany is one of the most powerful economies around, and with yet a relatively stable political system. We have a responsibility to help others, and by the way, if we don’t, it also will play out very bad for ourselves if all around us is crumbling.

Since the beginning of my international career 24 years ago, at any given time when I came “home”, to Germany, I felt that complaints about own misery were on a level which I could not understand any longer, comparing it with the effects of conflict and war in those areas I was working and living in, or the poverty-stricken perspectiveless of people in societies in which I contributed to assistance, or the frustration of people in the claws of nomenclaturae sucking the life-blood from any perspective of change, compelling people into compliance with a system of multi-layered corruption.

And, beyond Germany, is this a desease affecting the societies of the Western World?

Gratitude. I had a pinched nerve in my lower back when I started my travel to Toronto. Economy class seat, of course in the middle, not an aisle or window seat, squeezed in between two big persons. I had passed through the luxurious business class section on the way to my seat, thinking about the many times when I had the privilege to enjoy a spacious seat, and good food. Now I saw the faces of bored business class travelers when I passed through, and their annoyance when loads of economy class travelers disturbed their serenity. Sitting tight with a painful back, I sensed the travel stress of all others around me. Moving into some form of gratitude, I suddenly recognised that my two big neighbors felt uneasy about taking up so much space, and that they did what they could to give me space. If I would have aggressively claimed my space, I wouldn’t have noticed that. So, instead of an internal battle in which I would have thought about the misery of economy travel, I thought about the fact that one such travel brought me 8.500 kilometers westbound within hours. I was grateful to have an opportunity to see my children.

Arriving in Toronto, poor me (the economy class traveler with undeserved back pain) moved through immigration in minutes. Then, poor me decided to immediately pick up the new fancy MacBook Air 15 which I had ordered in advance at the Apple Store. Canadian prices for that gadget are so attractive. So I stopped at Toronto Eaton Center, the whole place in full Christmas decoration, North America style. Noticing homeless people in the shadow and hiding in corners, and fancy customers strolling through the high-end shopping mall, a trademark sign of Toronto, I picked up this new fancy gadget, immediately back in a cab then and arriving with almost no delay at the place where my children live. Grateful and happy, after a big hello by two teenagers, I fell asleep, privileged to cross one entire ocean in order to see my children, more or less every two or three months. My ex-wife also being grateful that now it was her turn to disengage from parental duties, for a little while.

I could complain about the combination of severe back-pain and jet lag which I experienced during the following days. I won’t. Instead, I recall the quality time of bonding with teenagers at different stages of their tumultous process of preparing to come out of age. I recall amazing talks about empathy in dark times with one of my children. I recall just being there, with nothing I could do, witnessing the pain of the first heartbreak experienced by the other child. I tried just to empathise, not being the parent giving advise, or meddling with the affairs of a teenager who had not intention to talk about this experience with a parent.

Coming back to the invisibilities in a high-powered society like the one my children live in. Living costs in Toronto are extraordinarily high. So has to be the income then, in order to make a living. Those people live in the neighborhoods like the one of my children. I see them coming out of their houses, getting into their SUV’s. Stopping at the neighborhood cafeteria on their way dropping off the kids at school.

Poor me, meanwhile, was limping through the house one evening, the pinched nerve was really incapacitating me. Poor me sat down and opened the fancy new MacBook Air. Domino Pizza has a near-perfect website. Geo-locating my area code, it directed me to the closest pizzeria. Ordering three pizzas, entering credit card details, tipping in advance in order to have “contactless delivery”, the website told me who the person was who fired up the oven and I could see the progress. Once things were out for delivery, a map would show me the exact position of the car on its way to our house. Ping. The very moment I limped out on the porch, the car arrived, I took control over the delivery. I enjoyed pizza with two children more or less bent over their cell-phones, their eyes glued to the Tic-Toc-streams.

Over the next days, I started to pay attention to this invisible layer of society, the low-wage-jobs which made it possible to enjoy such a luxury of, for example, pizza-delivery. Or ordering stuff on Amazon and to have it on our porch next day. I watched the nannies pushing the strollers with babies. I watched the people silently examining the litter boxes for collectible recycables. I watched the people warming up in the shopping malls, and I saw the legion of food-delivery drivers. I tried to imagine their lifes. To walk in their shoes.

Canada is a society with a lot of social compassion, and a lot of empathy. I’d love to live there. Yes, my lovely children, I just can’t, because I need to work the way I do. Go figure and watch this hidden layer of society in the United States, by contrast. And inasmuch as this new global wave of nationalism and xenophobia might be rooted in disenfranchised lower middle class and lower class portions of societies, I feel that the desease of a lack of empathy and of nationalism and xenophobia might be perfectly sitting smack-in-the middle of well-educated middle class people. It does not feel like a bottom-up uprising of the disenfranchised. It feels like memes are being spread by people who are well-educated, and not poor. I guess I am not the only one who can easily name a few examples for this in our own networks of people we know.

I left Canada eight days later. With a cured back and a new fancy MacBook Air 15. With tremendous sadness about leaving my children behind. On two flights with much better seating arrangements. Well, no sleep, though, which made the five hours layover in Frankfurt a difficult thing. Poor me. Arriving in Belgrade, I settled in my little old apartment and contacted my friends in the “Cat Pension”. Milos and Svetlana love Tigger, and he loves them and the other guest cats. Milos made everything happen to immediately put Tigger into his box and to drive to my place. With Tigger back home, I could witness real gratitude: My cat friend would not stop purring for two days, he would roll over in front of me ever so often, he would literally snuggle up in my arms for the next two nights.

I had five days to go. Five days to cure my jetlag from two times 8.500 kilometers, to finish some work preparation, to clean the van, load up the van, fill up the freshwater tank, activate the heating system. Five days to arrive from a different world, in a different world. My usual constant, my beacon of orientation: My street cafe. And back in European time zone, I could re-establish the pattern of frequent communication with friends, and friends in my recovery network.

One of them lives in South Africa. Another one in Scotland. A third one in Slovenia. Just examples, my friends live all over the world. For us, exercises in gratitude are key for our well-being. So, poor me, in a not so fancy apartment, witnessed the effort of staying grateful in the case of someone who lives on social subsidies, has no job, is coping with life and working hard on developing a positive attitude whilst being in a situation which, compared to mine, is so different. This friend of mine works hard on getting rid of fury, resentment, sadness, feelings of powerlessness. It does not make him or her rich. It will not immediately help in his or her economic troubles. Eventually, it will work. It always does. Like it does “this trick” for me. Well, waking up sometimes still sucks. But I manage to get better on that one too, one day at a time.

Empathy means to be able to listen to another friend of mine who really struggles with a massive depression, and the medication not working, without being brought down myself. Empathy means to just be there, sometimes, and to tell another person that, just today, that persons eyes look lively and good. Even if that person does not feel that way, the information about this is important. Because it will help loosen up the emotional pain. Sometimes, empathy is nothing else than pure love of being there for someone, with no means at your hands other than your sheer presence. Because, if I would would feel such emotional pain, I would want that for me. Just friends being there. And guess what, poor me: I do enjoy that. The very same friend would do everything the same way when it would me my turn to suffer from depression.

Sometimes, empathy means to completely let go, like in the case of one friend of mine.

Yet, poor me went through these five days worrying about each and everything, planning the travel to important work in Tirana, and how to plan the Christmas time, and how to travel. And how to tell another friend that I would not follow her invitation for spending Christmas at her place. Because, on one hand, I needed to take care of my collapsed tent. On the other hand, that travel would have added another 1.200 kilometers between Belgrade and Berlin. And thirdly, poor me wanted to be at a place where poor me would not be a guest, but feel “home”. Which is the caravan where Tigger and I live in Berlin. Not in misery, it is a fancy new caravan. And it is located in one of the most beautiful nature areas around Berlin’s lakes. Poor me.

So, five days later I shut the apartment door. Tigger being happy in the warm van, we traveled from Belgrade to Merdare. Which is in Serbia close to the border with Kosovo, in case you acknowledge Kosovo’s statehood. If you don’t, which Serbia and also a number of other States including some in the European Union do not, then Merdare sits at the Administrative Boundary Line separating Serbia and Kosovo, a former province of Serbia, under international mandate regulated with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244.

The very same UN Resolution which brought me to Kosovo early 2000.

The border crossing/boundary crossing is run through Integrated Border Management where both Serbian and Kosovan police and customs officers sit in one huge building which was erected and paid by the European Union. I was on my way to Tirana in Albania, and I wanted to do this travel in two days, in order to be easy on me. Having crossed the border, I decided that I would stay in Gracanica for the night. Gracanica is located directly at the fringes of Pristina, Kosovo’s capital. It is a village half-mixed between Kosovo-Albanian and Kosovo-Serb portions, with a core of Gracanica, surrounding a famous orthodox monastry, still constituting somewhat a Kosovo-Serb enclave. I lived in Gracanica for several years in the aftermath of conflict. Much of my work also included preventing violence in these enclaves, and also at times coming from them. It was all about the protection of civilians after conflict and war.

So, my travel from Merdare to Podujevo, from there to Kosovo Polje, and from there through Pristina and into Gracanica, it always fills me with memories. Many of them being awful memories. But also paying attention to what is happening currently, I saw the business of economic progress, mixed with old vehicles, tractors, and carts still pulled either by old machines or even by mules. New since one year or so: Every now and then, at the entry lane of a fuel station, I saw single women, young women, standing there. They always seem to be on the phone. For the passing traveler, it would look like they are waiting to be picked up by a relative or friend. If you look closely, you will notice that they will, for half a second, establish eye contact with you. As soon as you don’t pay further attention, the eye-contact will end. If you would, instead, slow down, you would see them for who they are: Sex-workers. Of the same kind like I can see them in Romania, from Dobreta Turnu Severin towards Craiova, for example.

Why do I mention it? To me, the phenomenon in its visibility was relatively new. It might not be. But this kind of prostitution is the prostitution of the poorest of the poorest. Of course it is managed by pimps, and of course this is part of organised crime. The sex-workers themselves: The poorest of the poorest. And the phenomenon in itself another example for those hidden layers in societies. Layers that we often do not notice. Exept when we want to. Except when we use them. The food-delivery guys, the nannies, or the sex-workers. Just as a matter of precaution, and for the record: Don’t.Do.It!

I do include a “please”. Because I have empathy for them. A lot.

With the sun setting, I arrived at my favorite place, a little hotel, called “Hotel Gracanica”, overlooking wide open fields towards Lipjan. The hotel has nice rooms, a swimming pool, a really nice garden, and space for campervans. It always is a big and friendly hello when I show up there, letting Tigger jump out of the van, happily enjoying another familiar place he loves, sniffing out the vegetable garden.

I was the only guest. The friendly staff firing up the kitchen only for me. So I had a good meal, nice simple conversations, and a night in my van on a secure compound, instead of renting a hotel room. The night was cold outside, my van cozy and warm and lit with warm lights inside. My gratitude included that, and the connection to the WiFi. These people are not rich, nor fancy. They are welcoming. They will speak fluently Albanian and Serbian, and they will use both languages as needed. With me, they will speak English. They are humble. That’s why I always come back. And its only these little details, like the easy-going use of both Albanian and Serbian language, which tell me, an insider, the story of change in Kosovo. Change does not happen overnight. It takes generations. Meanwhile, all who help and assist, they need patience, and they need to be very humble, far off from hypocrisy or impatience. Often enough, our own limitations and impatience sit at the core of why sustainability of peace and reconciliation could not be achieved.

Next day, rested and with a nice little breakfast in my belly, Tigger and I took the travel from Pristina to Tirana. I have little to report about that, because the only thing, really the only thing, to talk about is the marvelous landscape when traveling through the high and snow-clad mountains. Advancing the mountains from Prizren in southern Kosovo already is breathtaking. Passing Morina Border Crossing and traversing through Albania is providing stunning views. Another little detail: Once through, the temperature almost immediately jumped up from sub-zero to mediterranean t-shirt weather.

Poor me arrived in a van at the Rogner Hotel, a five-star hotel in the center of Tirana. Poor me, with the help of colleagues, had secured that I did not have to lodge in a five-star-room, like the more than 80 other participants in the conference marathon to follow, but that a hotel employee jumped into my van and talked me through the small streets towards the garden entrance of the hotel. There was lot of Police around, and a large demonstration adjacent to the Hotel. The employee guiding me explained that this was a protest against the government. Later during conference evenings, I would listen to friends who cursed the mayor of Tirana. Go, walk the town, see the sprawling development of buildings, make your own judgement. Albania is in a critical battle against corruption and on establishing a deeply rooted rule-of-law, on her way towards the European Union. I belong to those who believe Albania will succeed. Because of the Albanian friends I have. I am impressed by their passion and dedication and professionalism.

Tigger and I ended up with my camper van in the stunning backyard garden of a five-star hotel, where my autonomous van would sit for the next four nights. Heaven for Tigger. Convenient for me, because I could just walk into the conferences, receptions, meeting rooms, breakfast rooms, lunches. Of course, in a suit. Of course, well showered (my van has a nice shower). Yet, poor me telling me whether this would be okay.

I decided not to listen to poor me. Here is the thing: If you take your time and listen to employees in Tirana in a five-star-environment, you will also get the story including poverty in that country. On another occasion of an earlier conference in 2023, I had combined my travel with stopping over in most rural places in Albania. The combination of poverty, simplicity, and friendliness was overwhelming.

Just saying, poor me: Be grateful.

I don’t write about my work often, here. It’s complicated. It’s boring for some of you. It’s about long-term strategies, and a real support to local and regional development. It is not exciting for those who look for bad news stories, because it is the opposite. If you really want, really want, dive into it over here. It is a globally recognised example for how roadmap-based initiatives to control small arms and light weapons make a real difference.

I am biased, of course. Because I have dedicated much of my time since the beginning of 2020 to this endeavor. I don’t want to put it into the bag in which you would also find all things which form the cradle of all civilisations. It is, in many ways, an ordinary undertaking with a limited scope. In many other ways, it is not. One of the most-read entries in my blog is called “On Coherence of International Assistance“. It captures my views on why this work is so successful, on a very abstract and strategic level. In the context of this blog, I want to say something different.

For the tenth time since 2018, a conference room in the Western Balkans was filled with more than 100 participants. Six high-capacity delegations from Belgrade, Podgorica, Pristina, Sarajevo, Skopje, and Tirana, comprised of ministerial officials, law-enforcement and custom officials, prosecutors. High-level delegations from Brussels, Paris, Berlin, and other donor representatives. International organisations such as UNDP, UNODC, OSCE, NATO, EUROPOL and EMPACT in the room, or online. Civil society present.

For.The.Tenth.Time. Implementing, and assisting, a strategic roadmap which ties the six juridictions forming the Western Balkans together. Delegations from those six capitals reporting their own progress in implementing efforts curbing the impact of small arms and light weapons, and intently listening to the reports of their fellow partners. There is a reason why we only refer to “jurisdictions” and name them only by the name of their Capitals. That we do not allow any symbol or name or flag denominating an entity in the room. Because it completely allows that all talk with each other, and we do not get into any of this political tension which we otherwise would witness, and which would make our work impossible.

All of these ten conferences have also seen six local conferences in their preparation. The energy and dedication is not capped by the length of this endeavor. Instead, all six jurisdictions meticulously work on the identification of the strategy for the next five years. They permanently try to find entry points into increased regional cooperation, and at the same time both from their side and the side of the European Union the resulting cooperation is bringing the Region and the European Union ever closer together, in the realm of this topic.

If you would scan the Internet news on such stories of success, you would hardly be successful. Because in the onslaught of negative news, good news are either not recognised, or news outlets would not even bother with reporting on it. And funny enough, sometimes we are even happy about it, because it keeps a technical process of astonishing success away from political antagonisation.

That is as far as I wanted to report about these four days in this blog entry. I just wonder how we can find ways to counter the news which make us depressed, helpless, angry, sad, overwelmed. How we can nurture a culture which also sees the good news, and not only the funny cat stories on YouTube, or the Tic Toc shorts which are meant to keep you in the advertising ecosystem.

This entire initiative is, from a specific viewpoint, a prime example of how, for example, Germany is taking part, and also leading, a support initiative which is meant to help others. And though there is also quite some financial support in it, it is much much more, and it is an example for what others, as I also pointed out earlier, put into question. May be the answer is simple. Helping others is a guarantor for own stability.

Let me come back to “poor me”, once more, and in my final travel report.

Poor me had contracted a serious cold in Tirana (Covid-test is negative). Yet, poor me decided to travel back to Belgrade in one go. Ten hours. Exhausted but happy, I arrived in Belgrade.

Poor me wanted to rest, but also could not get rid of restlessness. So it was only too short after arriving in Belgrade that poor me loaded up the van again. That is how my travel report began in the first paragraphs. That is how I moved through Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.

Which constitutes my final comments:

Unlike last time, when arriving at the Serbian border with Hungary, there were no colons of migrants walking up and down the highway stretch. Also there were no military vehicles pointing their guns towards Serbia, on the Serbian side. No helicopters any more. But still, meticulous controlling of every car for illegal migrants on the side of Hungary. The intense cross-border efforts to fight organised crime trafficking migrants had an effect. Well, as always in fighting crime, the effect is to push crime away from one area. It will show up elsewhere. With the same victims. Repressive forms of fighting crime are not able to address root causes. They only can support zero-tolerance, and deterrence. But they do not operate at the root level.

Like last time, exiting Hungary and entering Slovakia was not possible without being flagged down and with polite police officers doing a visual inspection whether my van would carry illegal migrants. The same would happen, like last time, when leaving Slovakia and entering the Czech Republic. This time, approaching Usti Nad Ladem and the German border, I was not flagged down by a police vehicle with blue lights, inspecting my van for illegal migrants. But after the German border, a semi-permanent Police checkpoint forced every vehicle to slow down to walking speed. This time, I was waved through. “A Merry Festive Season” I exclaimed, they smiled, thanked me, and wished me the same.

Ending one day after I began this blog writing, and way too many coffees later, I can report that I am almost alone on my campsite. Most other permanent campers seem to enjoy the Season from the warmth of their homes. I don’t miss the two guys who I overheard in October, when these temporary migration-control measures were established, including Germany announcing to do this at the Polish and the Swiss border. These two guys said: “Now there won’t be any Muslim passing through Poland to Germany any longer”. For the sake of my inner peace, I did not vomit. I just left, because some things one can not control.

At the end, and against this background, special greetings go to my nephew and his Egyptian wife. My nephew converted to Islam. He was very easy on this. And his only reason was that he was so seriously trying to respect the cultural context of the family of his wonderful wife. If you ever come to know Egyptian culture, you will have a glimpse of appreciation what that meant for her parents.

If you, instead, harbor resentments, or would like to make derogatory comments, let me mention that my pregnant mother, a Protestant, was forced to accept at the time of marrying my Catholic father, in 1957, that I and any future children would be baptised Catholic. Otherwise the catholic priest would not have married my parents.

Think about that.

Be grateful. Be compassionate. Cultivate empathy. Before you die. Start now. You don’t know how much time is left to you to become a happy person. Hope you had a good Christmas. I did not put up XMas decorations, I could not get myself into it, with so many children dying in war, whether in the Ukraine, or in Israel/Palestine or Palestine/Israel, in Africa, or elsewhere. And have a peaceful New Year’s celebration. 2024 will not get better. In addition to all the unbearable suffering for which we need empathy, we will need to put every energy into resilience. 2024 the United States democracy will be put to a stress test that has the potential to rip it apart. Donald Trump, President Nr 45, the undisputed contender in the field of Republican candidates for the 47th President of the United States, has already made clear what we can expect.

Migrants are poisoning the blood of our country, he said.

With that, after 20.000 kilometers of migration, being a guest at most places, I end here.

Happy Holidays.

_{On this picture: I took this in a park in Tirana, December 2023}

A Long Summer – Creativity Refill

August 19, 2023August 19, 2023 / stefanfeller / Leave a comment

I took a long break from writing. I don’t write when I have doubts whether I have someting meaningful to say. So I spent a summer with introspection. Just sitting with my unease. Yesterday I felt the creative energy coming back for the first time. At the end of two weeks with my children here in Toronto I enjoy a second cup of coffee, the house still silent, this part of the World experiencing the beginning of a Saturday morning, my friends in Europe already moving into the afternoon, and I am opening the WordPress editor for the first time since months.

What happened leading to the end of my incommunicado? At the surface of it, it were two articles I read.

One relates to August 19, 2003, when the United Nations office in Baghdad was targeted in a suicide attack. Today, August 19, 2023, marks this day for the twentieth time. Sergio Viera de Mello, the Special Representative of the United Nations’ Secretary General, and 21 other people died in that attack. I belong to those who can’t forget this day, like many dear friends, in the United Nations, and beyond. I won’t forget Luis da Costa, personally. Many of my colleagues who serve or served in th UN have somebody dear to them whom they lost that day. The BBC article “How a suicide bomb attack changed the lives of UN aid workers” by Imogen Foulkes memorizes this horrible attack and reflects on how the attack changed the way the United Nations system is working, until today.

At the time of the attack I was working for the United Nations in my office in Pristina, Kosovo. I was the Police Commissioner of the United Nations Interim Mission in Kosovo by then. When this mission, dubbed UNMIK, was established in 1999, Kosovo was a place of severe post-war violence for several years to come. Like thousands of other UN staffers, we police officers would rent apartments for living amongst the population, and going to work using soft-skin vehicles and working from regular offices. May be fenced, may be some very normal security around, but we would literally live and work within the population, for the population. We would take risks of being attacked, I still have many pictures in my archive. But countries like mine, Germany, would be willing to send their police officers into an environment where we could find ourselves waking up to the aftermath of a bomb explosion nearby. In one of those many cases, a German police officer literally woke up one morning to discover two new holes in his living room: A rocket propelled grenade had punched an entry hole and an exit hole into his rental apartment. At no point I heard any serious request from Police Contributing Countries to withdraw police officers from the deployment into this mission. We stayed, like we did the same in previous missions, in Bosnia & Hercegovina, or elsewhere.

Later, in my time with Headquarters of the European Union or the United Nations, I would travel to Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Sudan/Darfur, to South Sudan, to Mali, the Central African Republic, to Somalia. In those places, I would meet police officers in so-called “Super Camps” or other protected compounds. I would move around with them in armored vehicles. My memories of travels outside of Baghdad’s Green Zone or outside the protected areas of Kabul include heaviest military protection. Yes, there still were the established Missions in which UN staff would live under more normal circumstances, such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or in Haiti, or Timor Leste, or Liberia, or Ivory Coast. But the world of the United Nations changed way more than only in relation to security. The BBC article says “In 2022 there were 235 attacks on aid workers, according to the Aid Worker Security Database, and 116 were killed.” Add the casualties amongst United Nations peacekeepers, I believe they are not even accounted for in this. Places like Mali and others have caused a human toll on United Nations staff that would have been unimaginable twenty years ago.

Like community policing, peacekeeping of the United Nations is about communication. It is about being temporarily rooted in a host population, in order to promote peace, to contribute to peace, and to develop the means of a host State in order to guarantee peace and security again. How do you do that through the thick protective glass shields of a heavy armored vehicle? I saw a convoy of armed UN vehicles moving slowly through a refugee camp in Darfur, stopping at the center, UN police officers getting out, protected by other officers with guns, sitting down with camp elders, then moving back into that convoy of armored turtles. Every day, once or twice. Walk in the shoes of those elders, think about how they may feel.

And like in the microcosm of daily operations, the inability to communicate achieving joint goals is also reflected within the United Nations Security Council. The erosion of jointness, whatever there was before, on the side of the five permament members of the Security Council has reached unprecedented levels. Those inside the system saw this storm coming for many years, if not decades. A toothless political instrument designed to be ultimatly the arbiter of peace and security on a global level is the product of countless defeats within that round chamber to achieve common positions which meaningfully legitimate the field work of the UN. As a consequence, not only behemoths like the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo suffer. Recently, the drawdown of one of the biggest UN Missions, in Mali, has begun. It just is the most recent case in a long line of withdrawals, some successful, some not. The most recent developments in Sudan’s Darfur area remind me of exactly what happened twenty years ago and led to the establishment of the African Union’s AMIS, and then UNAMID as it’s UN-successor. History moving in cycles? No progress, because a temporary halt of violence and decay is not exactly what we would name “sustainable” peace? One of the reasons why I fell silent, for some months. Watching the ever growing influence and presence of Wagner mercenaries, left and right of UN peacekeeping in the Sahel, and filling the void even more after Russian propaganda has successfully contributed to hollowing out democracies in Africa, to the advantage of autocratic leaders, power-hungry Generals and corrupt local elites. As a side-note, I see the defensive posture taken by Baltic States bordering Belarus, since parts of Wagner were stationed there in the aftermath of this most notable One-Day-Putsch attempt of Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Like terrorism aims at disrupting communication and sowing fear, establishing own versons of a so-called “truth”, the same is true for political processes of antagonisation, being the product of nationalism, being the product of reckless selfishness playing with the natural fear of human beings, establishing falsehoods, repeating lies as long as necessary so to become the “truth” for many. All of the above falls in line with a longer and larger development leading us to where we are, today. How do I explain this to my youngest children? By not stopping to tell stories, in order to establish memory, and context. It is not about attempting to revive the past, but to have meaningful informed context for how to operate in the Here and Now. I did this over the past two weeks here in Canada with my kids. Obviously, it gives me the energy for telling stories in my blog, again. It is not about getting my memories “out there”, again and again. It is about contributing to establishing context for those who will be at the helm of decision making nowadays, or soon. People like my children. Every parent shares that responsibility.

Not having contextual knowledge is one thing. Denial is the other. Which brings me to the other article, the second one.

“How European Officials View a Possible Second Trump Term” is the second article. I read it in the New York Times this morning, August 19.

When I arrived in Toronto two weeks ago, catching up with my ex-wife casually, I was about to ask her how Canadians are looking at the series of ever expanding criminal indictments of Nr 45. I was stopped with a smile, but cold in my tracks: “If it is about Trump, I don’t want to hear it.”

When I travel in Europe, whether in South-East Europe, or in my country, Germany, discussions of the current state of affairs in the United States appear to be very detached from what I can see when focusing on U.S. domestic press and media. Sometimes it feels like the 45th U.S. Presidency has become an afterthought in Europe. Media reporting in European outlets which I follow are way different to the hype on CNN, MSNBC, and other media. Yes, I read liberal news, more or less sympathetic to the Democrat’s cause. I don’t make myself suffering from watching Fox News, or hate-mongering media outlets. My daily list of suggested videos on Youtube is reflecting that preference, too. I don’t want to have my list of suggestions become convoluted with hate, fear, anger, and lies.

Yes, there is a point in not to over indulge. Much of the American hype also leads to stoking emotions which keep me coming back to yet another piece of sensational news. But this is only one part of the story. The other part is, that as a concerned person informing myself through reading more of this stuff than, say, the average person, I get genuinely scared.

The NYT article talks about the subdued expression of grave concern amongst politicians and policymakers in Europe. Grave concern about the real possibility of a second term of office for Donald Trump. What it would mean, for the U.S., Europe, the support for the Ukraine in their fighting a war against a Russian aggressor, for relations between Super Powers including China and (still?) the U.S., for the European Union, other regional organisations such as the African Union, for the United Nations, and for principles based on the Charta of the United Nations, including the Rule of Law, first and foremost.

The article reports about an understandably subdued expression of fear by European leaders and diplomats. In politics, facing reality means being careful about closing doors, in the interest of the own constituency. It also means not to contribute to creating self-fulfilling prophecies. Lastly, it means not to play into the hands of adversaries by giving them the platform of antagonisation and hate which is their only objective.

Yet, there always is a cost attached to everything. The necessity to remain cautious and mindful, it also plays into the overwhelming wish of human psychology to deny reality. In European discussions with everyday people, there are those who do not know about the sheer monstrosity of hate and the open announcement of retribution and retaliation which comes from every sentence uttered by Nr. 45. And of course, I prefer to listen to people who are not right-wing extremists. It would take me a lot of energy to talk to somebody who openly supports the German right-wing extremists within the political party called “AfD”. Whilst I do not listen to those, I am under no illusion that their hate-mongering thinking and sometimes covert, sometimes more and more open action will literally explode in a scenario where Nr 45 would become Nr 47. Our challenge is to find ways of naming the reality as it is without invoking the same which sits at the heart of those extremist’s agenda: Ruling by fear, overruling the rule of law, establishing regime change, overcoming a system from within. Once more, I recall Germany’s history of how the Weimar Republic was defeated from within. By the way, it included the victimisation of own punishment and incarceration, after the so-called “Beer Hall Putsch“.

I am quoting Wikipedia here for ease of reference, though a bit longish: “The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch,^{[1][note 1]} was a failed coup d’état by Nazi Party(Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorffand other Kampfbund leaders in Munich, Bavaria, on 8–9 November 1923, during the Weimar Republic. Approximately two thousand Nazis marched on the Feldherrnhalle, in the city centre, but were confronted by a police cordon, which resulted in the deaths of 16 Nazi Party members and four police officers.^[2]

Hitler escaped immediate arrest and was spirited off to safety in the countryside. After two days, he was arrested and charged with treason.^[3]

The putsch brought Hitler to the attention of the German nation for the first time and generated front-page headlines in newspapers around the world. His arrest was followed by a 24-day trial, which was widely publicised and gave him a platform to express his nationalist sentiments to the nation. Hitler was found guilty of treason and sentenced to five years in Landsberg Prison,^{[note 2]} where he dictated Mein Kampf to fellow prisoners Emil Maurice and Rudolf Hess.“

Of course, I would NEVER EVER compare Nr. 45 with Adolf Hitler. NEVER EVER. But it is also fair to link you up with one for many references which may make you think yourself: “Donald Trump’s ex-wife once said Trump kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bed” is a reference to an article in “Business Insider” of September 1, 2015. It is just one of many results of a simple Google search, and references can be found in many reputable news outlets. What I do seriously believe is that Trump is actively using the indictments for his narrative, rather than trying to avoid them.

But back to denial: It is a common experience in which I have an in-depth personal share from many operational situations throughout my time with the United Nations and the European Union: Aside of those who are careful with their words so not to add to fear-mongering, there are those who elegantly snuff at worst-case scenarios, giving an impression as if they would have serious insider-knowledge, assuring you that your worst-case scenarios are but a paranoid dream not based on what they pretend to know. I witnessed too many situations where we woke up to a different reality. After that, those smart people quickly switch sides, pretend grave concern, joining those who say, exhaling moral authority: “How could that happen?”

I don’t say we will wake up in a different world next year. But I will say that chances are close to 50:50. If one only follows American polls, the sheer amount of those who simply stick to Nr 45 is overwhelming. The timidity of all Republican potential contenders of Trump for the Republican choice as Presidential candidate is deafening. The polled support of U.S. citizens supporting violent regime change counts a bit less than 20 Million. The shattered few remains of a healthy Republican core DNA will diminish with an almost unhearable “poof” once Nr 45 would win the race for the Republican candidacy. Retribution and cleansing the G.O.P. will follow as a first step. This scenario is already very much an emerging serious threat. From there, an election campaign would leave the great American people ever more divided and prepared for extremist action. Finally, just in case Nr 45 would become Nr 47, the immediate agenda would be nothing else than cleansing the Administration, everything would be about retribution, retaliation, and riddling the system with spineless brainless hateful self-serving cronies.

The Rule of Law would cease to exist, because I simply can not see the depth of resilience much longer which has brought amazing, brave, and highly skilled representatives of the justice system to where the U.S. is today. Just think about it: Donald J. Trump is defendant in four criminal cases with 91 charges (of which 44 are federal, 47 are state charges), alongside a huge number of co-conspirators. The four cases include the Jan. 6 election case, the classified documents case, the N.Y falsifying business records case, and the Georgia 2020 election case. In the Georgia case, Nr 45 and 18 others stand accused of violations of a powerful anti-racketeering law (RICO), which was solely created for enabling justice to arrest powerful Mafiosi. One of those who prided themselves for using the RICO provisions against the Mafia is now defendant under the same provisions: Rudy Giuliani.

I don’t think it is an over-statement to qualify the threat as being existential for the Rule of Law. The evidence fills whole Internet archives, and is now pouring into the courtrooms, through brave prosecutors, and brave judges. Unsurprisingly, the media is also abuzz with the judgement by doomsayers who assess the risk of indicting a former President as a threat to politics, and democratic governance. I disagree. This can not be tampered down by attempting to subdue the course of justice. Chances are that this would not change the battle for democracy at minimum, it may well be that it would be a serious blow in itself. There is no grey zone in here. It is about black and white, truth must stand up against lies, and the only chief principle is that we shall not fall into resentment, anger, and fear. Because this is what the other side wants.

Can I somewhat end my blog revival entry on a happy note, in case you’re still reading this?

Here is my current list of books I am reading. I bought myself a Kindle Scribe, and it has entirely changed the way I am reading. No books in my travel luggage. An amazing book-size screen. A battery-life for many weeks without even needing a charge.

I read “On The Origin Of Time” from Thomas Hertog. An amazing and equally mind-boggling book about Stephen Hawking’s final theory.

I read Zoe Kors’ “Radical Intimacy”, which is a great read within both the extended and the more narrow meaning of the word “intimacy”.

I read the classic text “The Prophet” by Khalil Gibran, (available in The Guttenberg Project open library).

In parallel I re-read “Psychoanalysis and Zen Buddhism” by Erich Fromm.

I am reading Pema Choedron’s amazing book “How We Live Is How We Die” for the fourth time.

I am reading “Polishing the Mirror” by Ram Dass, and I will continue with Daisetz Deitaro Suzukis’ book “Mysticism – Christian and Buddhist”.

Finally, and with great pleasure, I am re-reading a book which I read last time probably four decades ago: Frank Herbert’s “Dune”.

All of those justify an own decription of my impressions. May be I’ll do some, at a later stage. Not here. But reading healthy wholesome literature covering a spiritual connection with the World, from various angles of mystical tradition, and combining that with a well-written book like “On The Origin Of Time”, which ends with surprising statements about what we can not know by means of science, it is one of those things over the summer which allowed me to re-position myself, to re-center myself, and to find new creative energy here, again.

Finally, since I started with a 20-year memory, I am ending with another one, a personal anniversary: Tomorrow it will be the tenth time I am honouring a decision I took August 20, 2013. It marked the beginning of a path which ultimately allowed me to reconcile with my own complex PTSD. It allows me to explain personal experiences and context to my now teenager-children, without being overwhelmed by own emotions. Not that you got an impression that my writing got less intense, if you read the above. Yet, there is a difference between passion and strong emotions.

Grateful that I can detach better. Like taking several months of break from writing here, or on my book projects. Now, back to work. Like, in my job, finding convincing arguments why reducing the threat from small arms and light weapons is important, even when we face the opposite discussion in light of a war in Europe.

There always is a time post-conflict. Better prepare for it now.

We don’t go it alone

January 27, 2023January 27, 2023 / stefanfeller / Leave a comment

Prelude: My French friend with whom I wanted to meet this morning, discussing work over coffee, got sick. Sending him a “Get Well”, and using the time alone with my coffee for a piece I wanted to “put out there”.

There have been many articles and comments in the media about an expectation towards Germany to “lead”. Same on the side of politics. Whether related to States bordering the Ukraine, Belarus, and the Russian Federation, or the discussions and reflections in the U.S. media, and elsewhere. Commentators were quick to point to a perceived, or alleged unwillingness or inability on the side of the German Chancellor to make a decisive move. In the most recent case, as we all remember, it is about supplying the Ukraine with German made main battle tanks. Before that, it was about medium sized battle tanks (like the “Marder”), or about armoured vehicles, or about defensive air systems. Of course, there also was the unfortunate communication at the beginning, helping the Ukraine by sending 5000 protective helmets. And yes, there is an embarrassing element in that. In the scheme of things I wanted to quickly write about, the last one is collateral damage, or an anectotal side story. However, even this unfortunate communication by the former Defense Minister of Germany had a positive impact: Waking up to a new reality is not an easy thing to do. Hawkish thinking will have a home-run. Those who cling to an effort thinking about peace as it was before things changed, they will become defensive. Ruptures will loom, and these can be exploited by malicious actors, inside a system (extremists and enemies of the constitutional foundation of a system), inside a framework of collaboration and cooperation, (of course I am talking about the EU and about NATO), and outside (like the Russian Federation, but not only).

Only history will tell us whether we handle things cautiously, or too cautiously. But the principle we follow is that we don’t go it alone.

I am not involved into policymaking and strategies how to handle the situation which includes a War of Aggression against the Ukraine. But I see this principle in every aspect of my own work, and in every aspect of German governance that I can reasonably make conclusions about, on basis of what I see in publicly available information. I believe this is more than anecdotal evidence for that this is a principle of German policy within the context of all things E.U, all things NATO, and all things U.N.

Where I can simply state that I know we do it this way is within the context of our support to an initiative of the six jurisdictions of the Western Balkans to come to grips with all aspects related to Small Arms and Light Weapons. I see this “DNA” reflected in everything, how we support ownership, how we support it in close collaboration with the Regional Cooperation Council RCC, together with France in a so-called Franco-German initiative which sits at the roots of this support since 2014 within the “Berlin Process”, and how we do it together with all relevant actors inside the European Union, namely the European Union External Action Service, the European Commission’s Directorate General for Neighborhood, and the European Commission’s Directorate General for Migration & Home Affairs. And on the other side of the equation, how we support our jointness by empowering implementing organisations, be them part of the United Nations family (UNDP and UNODC), be them part of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe OSCE, be them structures inside NATO.

The above complexity just in order to demonstrate how complex a process in which we don’t go it alone can be. There is, on all levels, a tremendous effort behind the principle of not going it alone. And much of it is almost invisible to the public, hungry for bad news. But without revealing internal stuff, it looks like we are getting assessments confirming the success sitting behind practically applying principles such as real assistance to others, and not to go it alone.

Allow me also to make a brief point on what some commentators refer to as some historic reasons for this German attitude. They talk about the German history of how we came out of our own darkest times, the most shameful parts of German history, the Holocaust. Which, after all, was the horror after the Nazis managed to wrestle control away from the previous system of governance. Nazi Germany was the product of an inside job destroying the Republic of Weimar, including a successful brazen attack on the Weimar Constitution. In my senior police education, I was once asked to write up the similarities and differences of the Weimar Constitution with the “German Grundgesetz”, the basic law we gave ourselves after Word War II, which we kept open through a preamble in which we promised to never give up on re-unification, and which we then carried over into the German constitution, our basic law, of today. Nutshell: The German basic law is founded on a DNA which can already be found in the Constitution of Weimar, including human and citizen’s rights. Part of the post-Holocaust effort in designing a new basic law was to enshrine provisions making it more difficult, or hopefully even impossible, to hollow it out from the inside.

In all this German “DNA” there is reflection of the responsibility that we promised to ourselves, to victims, and to the World at large, to never allow this happening again.

This is a vital part of our own constitutional immune system against the danger stemming from if power goes rogue. This is why we don’t go it alone.

And to see a practical detail about how serious we are in this, look at this German article in the German news “Tagesschau” from today: “Im Holocaust erlebten ukrainische Juden grenzenlose Grausamkeit” is the title of a piece from today. In German language, the German Tagesschau is reflecting on Babyn Jar, located in Kviev. Over the duration of the German Nazi occupation of the Ukraine, this place suffered from the killing of more than 100.000 Jews by the Nazi regime. It peaked with two days during which at least 33.771 human beings were killed by the German Nazis.

With responsibility, humility, and no hesitation the German news report about this during a time of war in the Ukraine, during a time which includes that Germany has, just two days ago, also agreed to enlarge our already large military assistance to the Ukraine by sending own main battle tanks, and allowing other Nations to send their own German-made Leopard-II-tanks, too.

My work over the past 23 years has brought me to places of mass murder, genocide, and any unthinkable crime against humanity. Not bragging here. But making the point that I witnessed so many efforts to come to terms with that own shameful legacy. Some did well. Visit the genocide memorial in Kigali, Rwanda, for example, like I did on two occasions. Some struggle. Listen to the different voices on the Srebenica genocide, for example. Some deny, and threaten consequences to anyone who begs to differ from the public line of unaccountability. Look at the situation with the Uyghurs in China, or the Armenian genocide early on during the last century.

Taking collective action in the interest of, and service of, peace does not leave any wiggle room for taking own full responsibility, and requires to not going it alone.

That’s what we do.

The picture was taken by myself in May 2019. I was visiting the Dachau Concentration Camp with beloved American, German, and Egyptian friends.

Truth Wars

November 30, 2022 / stefanfeller / 4 Comments

From the Cambridge Dictionary:

“truth – the quality of being true”

“the truth – the real facts about a situation, event, or person“

“truth – a statement or principle that is generally considered to be true“

“truthfulness – the quality of being honest and not containing or telling any lies“

From Wikipedia:

Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality

I guess I could go on and use definitions or descriptors from many other sources, and still there would be a sort of ambiguity reflected in the term “truth” that can’t be dissolved. Words such as “quality“, “real“, “facts“, “generally considered“, “being honest“, “lies“, they are a far cry away from an axiomatic meaning which would establish something like “an absolute truth” which can not be disputed by anyone, or any argument.

Looking at the above, truth is a relative term, and it requires consent between those who state that a thing, an event, a statement, a concept “is true”.

So, truth is not only a label, but also a relationship between conscious entities, such as human beings (but not only!) through consent, or agreement, or unfortunately also by unchallenged imposition, or through joint perception. For any non-colorblind person, “red” is “red” and “blue” is “blue”, despite the fact that I cannot prove that what I see as “blue” is seen the very same way by another person agreeing with me on labeling the color of a thing as being “blue”. There are people who, just for example, perceive colors and sounds VERY differently from the majority of humans: “Chromesthesia or sound-to-color synesthesia is a type of synesthesia in which sound involuntarily evokes an experience of color, shape, and movement.” Those who have experience with substances such as LSD, or Psylocybin, will report about sound or especially music creating patterns and extremely detailed textures and colors, once one closes the eyes. It helps in understanding the relative truth of conventional perception, and the limitations coming from if I just assume that another person is assuming the same things being “true”.

If it is true for me that this color is “red”, it requires a consent with you to agree on labeling a perception the same way. In order to understand you, I need a certain degree of joint experiences, and languages being used in a similar or same way.

Is there something which is beyond a requirement to consent in order to be considered being “true”? Aren’t the facts from science undisputable? Isn’t mathematics something which is founded on axioms? So, looking up “Axiom” reveals the definition that “an axiom, postulate, or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments.“

Here we are again, using the term “true“, or “taken as true“, meaning that we have to consent on accepting some statement as being “true”. If I believe in a flat earth, my fellow flat-earthers and I will claim that it is true, and will not deviate, whichever scientific facts which I consider being true I throw at them.

I remember a science lesson at my high-school, probably around 1974. The teacher had invited two members of Jehova’s Witnesses into our class. We were invited to discuss their belief that the World has been created by their Creator roughly 6000 years ago (plus the almost fifty years between that discussion and today…). My friend Peter and I, who loved loved science, used every fact we knew about in our reasoning that, according to our knowledge, the Earth was roughly 4.5 billion years old, in a universe we nowadays believe has been evolved from a Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. There was literally no way that we could penetrate their arguments and make them agreeing on some form of truth which would have established a consent between us and them. Neither could they convince us related to their version of Genesis, just mentioning.

So, as an intermediate thought: What does it mean if people in our current state of antagonisation say “Truth Matters”? What is the meaning behind a brand label created by Number 45, “Truth Social”?

It means nothing else than that consent on an unspecified number of qualities, beliefs, policies, worldviews, or else, is called upon. And at least “Truth Social” would be an example for a dogma such as “As long as you consent to my view, you are in line with my truth, and if you are not, I may even call you an Enemy of the State.” Truth as a means of control. Number 45 did this on countless occasions, and more recently he is hard-pressed by people who are attempting to establish even more radical forms of white supremacy, xenophobia, racism, and anti-semitism. Read in The Rolling Stone: “How Trump Got Trolled by a Couple of Fascists“.

So, when we talk about “Truth Matters”, is it about imposing my truth upon you, or finding a mutual platform of consent, through listening, empathising, understanding, agreeing, compromising, finding common denominators?

Before coming back to my last question, here another source of my personal belief system:

In the Buddhist teachings, there are Two Truths. …”there’s an idea that everything has two levels of truth, relative and absolute: how we experience life when we’re immersed in it, and how we experience it from a distance when we can get a vaster perspective” (Pema Chödrön – How We Live Is How We Die, 2022 Shambala Publications, Page 51).

Essentially, in my interpretation (sic! need of consent again…): Absolute truth is a concept from the spiritual realm, including, but not limited to, religious faith. Please note that in my view Buddhism is not a religion, but a spiritual source of wisdom. I don’t believe in a personalised God concept. But I am firmly rooted in a spiritual connection with Everything.

If you, the reader, would agree with me, then we would conclude that the world of phenomena has only relative truths, based on perceptions which are mutually held. The absolute is the realm of the spiritual world. However, if people claim they have understood the Absolute (Or claim God spoke to them), and they allow it to permeate into the world of phenomena, dogma is born: My truth is absolute. My God will protect my soldiers, and not your soldiers. My God says that women need to be veiled. My God allows me to fight a Holy War. Radical Muslim dogmatists have done that, radical Buddhist fundamentalists have done that, radical Hindu fundamentalists have done that, Christianity has its share of radical violent dogmatism and suppression and brutal violence, Judaism is not without such phenomena, no religion or spiritual belief framework is without shameful stains resulting from imposing an absolute truth on my fellow women and men, human beings of any sexual and gender identification, followers of a belief, and especially also children.

Where does this lead me to, here?

What I see is the widespread use of catchphrases such as “Truth Matters” with a reduced understanding as if there would be “one truth”, and that others fall victim to “untruthfulness”. That those who manipulate with lies do establish the opposite to truth. I don’t see it like that. I see it as the attempt of replacing “your truth” with “my truth”. I see it as an attempt to control the narrative, and through it, others.

That is why I continue to note that still, increasingly, and on a global level, we see antagonisation thriving, and collaboration and listening in an effort to understand the position of others diminishing.

When the Biden Administration took office, there was a refreshing silence for some time on Number 45. Nothing today is reminding of those few months. Everywhere I look, listen, watch, read, I see Trumps, Ye’s, Elons, Victors, Matteos, Björns, Vladimirs, and their copycats. And everywhere, the radicalisation leads to that the next copycat is more radical than the one before.

That’s why I choose “Truth Wars” as the title. Truth Wars do not require consent by argument, in such a violent scenario it matters that I succeed, by imposition and manipulation, not by accepting another person’s reality as equally relevant to mine.

What I see is that after a perceived “lull”, the Truth Wars have become even more radical. Racism, xenophobia, hate against transgender people, hate of and supremacy over women, anti-semitism, anti-muslim sentiments, they come closer to be part of the mainstream. As a part of a larger pattern of xenophobia, in the Western World the white hateful male lower middle-class and impoverished lower-class underdogs fall victim to pied pipers, some of them extremely privileged and dishonest.

What I also see is that we deploy force against force, loudness against loudness, control against the attempt to control. Literally every such concept is pouring gasoline on the firepit.

In my line of professional work, I support the consent between the six jurisdictions forming the Western Balkans, on the belief that fewer weapons, explosives, and ammunition, and more control over all licit aspects of them, and the fight against illicit aspects of using weapons, their ammunition, and explosives, is good for peace and security in these societies. As a consequence of this consent on a jointly held truth, these six jurisdictions (we name them jurisdictions, since Kosovo is not un-disputed amongst all of them and amongst others in relation to statehood, different to Albania, Bosnia &Hercegovina, Montenegro, North-Macedonia, and Serbia), these six jurisdictions communicate, collaborate, and cooperate highly joint in implementing policy and operations. They do this despite the fact that some of them have disputes on a political level, and that cultural, ethnical, and faith diversity creates this amazing and wonderful mix which has also seen violence, oppression, war and genocide when some considered their truth more supreme than the truth of others.

I am using this as a practical example for the opposite of what I have labeled “Truth Wars”. This is one of countless examples were people sit together and listen, and learn from each other, willing to do things jointly, whilst acknowledging that they do not agree on everything, for the sake of a higher objective, and advantages for all, instead of only for oneself.

Yet, the fundamental consent (sic: truth) on how to control Small Arms and Light Weapons could not be more different from, for example, the United States, where there is a widely held belief by many (don’t know whether they constitute a majority, and doubt it), that only the Second Amendment ensures the protection of the First Amendment. The accepted truth, and the consequences of it (exponentially more violence and unprecedented levels of mass shootings) are radically different, and this permeates literally into everything, including how for example policing concepts are being developed and implemented: It is not only about the need of police to protect themselves against an ubiquity of weapons; If citizens reject policing as something they want to give up their own weapons for, community oriented policing is VERY different in understanding, concept, and implementation.

If truth matters, it includes to accept that there are many different subjective truths. This allows for their coexistence, their learning from each other, their development, and ideally the growth of something that is more joint. So, very different to what we seem to nurture, or to fight, right now.

Uvalde – A Practical Proposal: Stop the monetization of social media channels glorifying Small Arms and Light Weapons

May 27, 2022May 27, 2022 / stefanfeller / Leave a comment

Living in the United States between 2013 and 2018, I have had an inside view into the discussion that never seems to get anywhere: How to end the unending series of mass shootings which especially haunt this country. Like so many others, I am sick and tired. I am mad with the arms lobby, I do not understand how any politician arguing the rights of the Second Amendment being more important than any meaningful gun control law in light of the suffering of relatives, especially parents and caregivers, can even sleep, knowing that their sick and crazy protection of the gun lobby is making them morally complicit, as the next mass shooting will not occur in a decade, or next year, but within weeks.

At the time of this writing, parents, caregivers, husbands, wives, relatives, friends in Uvalde, Texas join a group of uncounted individuals who do not get relief from unspeakable pain, suffering losses that no parent and loved one should ever have to live with. Being a parent myself, my heart is broken and my thoughts are reaching out to those who feel utterly destroyed, hopeless, powerless, left with no meaning in their life any more.

Please watch this BBC video.

Gun violence in the United States takes more victims than traffic does. With brutal ignorance, the argument is repeated, over and over again, by these enablers of the NRA, that gun control does not curb this violence, that only armed security at schools does. There is no grain of evidence for such outrageous claims, against all comparative scientific evaluation of the effect of gun control legislation in jurisdictions all over the world. I am not even bothering with referencing such results here, they are ubiquitous for everyone who is really interested in getting the picture.

I invite you, for example, to watch the statement of Jimmy Kimmel, on occasion of the Uvalde school mass killing. I don’t have to add anything.

Meanwhile, German news report about contacts which the perpetrator had, in the weeks running up to the crime, with a fifteen year old girl in Germany. Including that the perpetrator clearly announced his intentions, and not only over the last minutes, but long before.

Which brought me to the role of Social Media, again. And here is a practical suggestion:

Demonetize any social media channel glorifying Small Arms and Light Weapons.

Since 2019, my work is connected to the efforts of the German Federal Foreign Office to support activities of States and international organizations to set up strategic, long-term, and meaningful gun control. We support this in six jurisdictions in the Western Balkans, we support it in the Carribean, we support it in West Africa, we look for ways how to engage in East Europe, and in Central Asia. The center of gravity of my work revolves around supporting the six jurisdictions of the Western Balkans in their effort to implement a regional strategic roadmap addressing all aspects of gun and ammunition control in a holistic way. Please, if you’re interested, read about the Western Balkans SALW Control Roadmap here. I am connected to similar activities in other regions of the world.

So I believe I know what I am talking about.

Advising on all technical, strategic, and often political aspects of this support work, I need to stay informed about latest developments, types of weapons and ammunition, converted weapons, 3D-printed weapons, and so much more.

That’s how Youtube began to invade my watchlist with weapons channels of the craziest forms.

I won’t even promote them here by mentioning names. They are pervasive, ubiquitous, the makers of these channels live and hail from the United States, Germany, Austria, just to name but a few.

Privately I am watching other things. I am subscribing to a few channels of vanlifers, who struggle to keep up a watching community of a few thousand, sometimes more. But none of them reaches the hundreds of thousands or millions of subscribers and views which weapons’ channels easily get. And I do know, from extensive watching, how absolutely centered these channels are around monetization, how makers tip-toe around some rules which would lead to a de-monetization of a vlog entry.

Here are two suggestions:

Those of us who watch these channels: Unsubscribe, and make yourself heard about the reasons why you are doing this, in the comments’ sections. Subscribing to these channels is allowing the makers of these channels to generate a part of their revenue. Stop watching this stuff.
To social media: It is time to take sides, and not to wait for a sickening and tiring new round of discussions on regulating the Internet. You don’t have to take the channels offline. Just demonetize any channel which can not clearly live up to justified reasons, such as scientific, policy, news&reporting, or else. Don’t hide behind the argument that the line is difficult to draw. The number of channels with people firing weapons under the craziest of all circumstances just for the purpose of glorifying weapons, and attract people watching it, it is outrageous. Take a stand. Don’t put your business model front and center. Act with compassion and support those who are eaten alive by grief, for the rest of their lives.

On Weapons, Ammunition and Explosives – An Afghanistan Threat Assessment

September 3, 2021September 3, 2021 / stefanfeller / Leave a comment

20 August 2021, Christoph Heusgen, former permanent representative of Germany to the United Nations, and former longtime foreign and security policy advisor to Chancellor Angela Merkel, found clear words. In an article on the website of the European Council on Foreign Relations headlined “Germany and Afghanistan: Time to ditch bad governments, not good governance“, he draws a comparison of the engagement in Afghanistan with the situation in Mali, West Africa. He begins with stating “After Afghanistan, countries such as Germany should reconsider their presence in Mali, unless the ruling class commits to good governance and democratic principles.”

In the above article he talks about “good governance”, not only about “democratic principles”. He carefully lists both terms connected with an “and”. They stand separate from each other. And he talks about “the ruling class”. I will come back to “good governance”, conditionality, but also moral responsibilities, towards the end.

At the time of this writing the new Emperor is dressing into governmental clothes: The Taleban are in a process of forming and announcing a new government. When the insurgency had reached Kabul’s outer perimeter, the former Afghan government imploded, literally, after the former President fled the country. In an earlier article on Afghanistan developments I wrote that the difference with this implosion of governance is that we were observing it being on the inside, not on the outside. And in my last piece as of September 02, 2021 I wrote about a country being “armed to the teeth”. This because, amongst many other, the implosion has extraordinary consequences for the amount and type of military and police equipment, weapons, ammunition, and explosives.

Roughly, my questions related to future threats are:

Is this gear now subject to new governmental control, and to which extent, and how?

What will this gear be used for in Afghanistan by those who claim legitimacy for their governing the country, or just do rule it without any process resembling legitimacy?

Will the new Emperor (so to speak) undertake a comprehensive effort to secure large stockpiles of weapons and ammunition before even more will disappear into dubious, criminal, and terrorist channels as for sure is the case already right now? And how will this be done, concretely looking at possible new faultlines of terror and organised crime, by creating new generations of people being subjected to cruelties?

Which consequences come from the implosion preceeding the victory? Where are soldiers, police officers, commanding officers of any rank, organisational structures? We hear stories of individuals hiding, of entire units fleeing into neighboring countries together with the equipment they were carrying. We don’t know who will partner up with warlords. We don’t know who will end up on the side of terrorist organisations. And by the way, we do hear about the hostility between IS and the Taleban. We do hear about disappointed Taleban joining the ranks of ISIS-K, who are historically hostile to the Taleban, and who are extremely radical in their religious beliefs. What does this mean for weapons being readily available? Which threats come from extremism and terror in the region, for other parts of the world, including, but not only, Europe?

I am not even pretending this list is complete. Neither I would make a comparison in detail about what happened in other country situations where governance imploded, such as in Libya. Except for the numbers of weapons out of control after Libya’s implosion which were ending up fueling the conflict cycles which haunt us in addition to Libya, thereafter. I talk about Mali and what I witnessed there throughout my travels 2013 and the following years. Today, nine years after the initial crisis in Mail, the fire which we try to extinguish is burning in neighbouring countries, and beyond.

What I say is that we have serious reasons for working on a profound threat assessment. In my conversations, I hear all sorts of opinions. Some would be on the cautious side. Others would say “There won’t be much happening”, or they would say “There is not much that will be a threat for Europe, Afghanistan is too far away”, or, “I am not interested”. The last one being something I heard very often when I listened to people on the streets.

If the catastrophic failure of all collective assessments of intelligence, diplomacy and politics led to the circumstances which we witnessed in July and August, with many voices likening it with an embarrassing “defeat of the West”, what more do we need as a wake-up call that we need to wrap our minds around everything which could be a potential threat for humanity, peace, and security? For the citizens in Afghanistan, in Afghanistan’s neighborhood, in countries closer to the European Union, and the EU itself?

There is no time for complacency any longer.

Just a recap: Until recently, we fought a war against the Taleban, considering them insurgents at least, but we would put them close to terrorism, or we would consider them committing acts of terror. We have, until now, all indications for Taleban forces being responsible for atrocities, for countless crimes against humanity. We have not only withdrawn from a war against the Taleban, with international forces fighting against the Taleban. Rather, the Afghan military and the Afghan Police apparatus has been built, trained, staffed, and equipped. With huge amounts of military and police gear.

This has not been an isolated U.S. endeavor. The U.S. was involved on their own, and being part of NATO. NATO, and NATO member States were in this, together with the United States. The European Union was in it, amongst many other topical areas the EU, and EU Member States, provided large financial contributions to what is known as LOTFA, the Law and Order Trust Fund. Throughout two decades, Afghanistan’s military and policing capacities and capabilities were defined through often mainly international decisions, and when the capacities were stood up, they were dependent on everything, including salaries, equipment, and training. We are talking about an entire Army, and an entire Police setup. From everything I know from public sources, there wasn’t much sustainable development at all if the entire security apparatus depends on salaries being paid through international trust funds, capabilities being generated as donations, with huge dependencies on foreign contractors working on maintenance and supply chains, and constant ongoing training.

Even in a “best case” scenario, I have difficulties imagining anything like a smooth transition of what we call a “chain of command” from one government to the next. It feels almost cynical to name it like that. Rather, I anticipate that sheer power of coercion by the Taleban, may be combined with tribal play which we hardly understand, will compete with resistance, dissolution, and the panic of individuals who fear for their life, and that of their families. There are news about the Taleban not living up to what they publicly claim, that they hunt and execute former police and military officials. What does this mean for weapons control, and for the fate of armed people who are desperate, and need a living at the same time?

Within days in August, the Talban took control. A short while later, the last U.S. airplane being part of the international evacuation and rescue effort, now hailed by the U.S. Secretary of State as the biggest air bridge ever, left Kabul 30 August, 23:59 hours. With that, the U.S. declared the war in Afghanistan being over. Already before, we froze all international aid, by far not only the humanitarian side of it. Who is paying salaries for soldiers and police, right now?

International attention, and attention of the general public, often has a short breath. I can already feel that some may say “Alright, we have lost that war, let us move on.” For twenty years, we were with the Afghan people. Like everyone else in Afghanistan, our military and police colleagues grew friends with us. Fought with us, risked their life for their people, and trusting our promise that we would not leave them alone. Afghan police and military were the ones who took unimaginable casualties (the police even more than the military), and won’t forget the civilian casualties from two decades of war, either. After all, the victims were family, or friends.

Thus, further instability may not only depend on how the Taleban act when delivering on what they claim: That they are different now. It also depends on whether we are able to create new trust amongst those who feel they have lost everything. This means that we can not only think about threats from Afghanistan we may have to contain in the closer and larger neighborhood. We have to seek ways how we can establish a dialogue inside Afghanistan as well. Here, conditionality will be critical.

Apart from any moral assessment of this, which has its legitimacy in its own right: From a pure threat assessment perspective we need to think about a situation where former friends may feel that we have handed them over to former enemies. Where does this lead us to? Our own actions decide about whether this points to future enemies, or scenarios of cooperation. I stop there, the humanist in me wants to, of course, think of even more.

It means that, concretely for the topic at hand – large amounts of weapons, ammunition and explosives – we need to look into long term strategies, waiting for opportunities and avenues allowing the support to containment, control, and demolition inside Afghanistan, and immediate strategies allowing to help in establishing conditions for networks addressing SALW control in Afghanistan’s neighborhood.

Weapons – Ammunition – Explosives – On Afghanistan – Numbers first and what we do not know

September 2, 2021September 2, 2021 / stefanfeller / 1 Comment

In my previous blog article I wrote about the core of my current line of work: Advising the German Federal Foreign Office on aspects of assistance related to systematic control of what is known as Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW). The categorization “Small Arms and Light Weapons” can be somewhat misleading, because of the attributes “small” and “light”. Like, light weapons being weapons requiring not more than three people carrying them. We don’t talk about toy weapons. We talk about everything including pistols, rifles, submachine guns, machine guns, and sorts of equipment capable of destroying tanks, or gunning aircrafts down, as long as this stuff can be moved around easily.

We talk about some of the most lethal gear which can be used in asymmetric warfare, organized crime, insurgency, violent extremism, and terrorism. If you want to binge, go to Youtube and look up those gun nerds who run channels where they use this type of weaponry on firing ranges for smashing just about everything, because it creates huge numbers of people watching it. Some of those people don’t only smash things, but also explain the weapons and ammunition in a very detailed, very professional way. Veterans of various wars, having found a retirement business model.

Just to set the record straight about the type of stuff I am looking at in the following paragraphs.

Since every assessment in my line of work starts with a threat assessment, I began to wonder about what we know about the amount of SALW which we can expect to be in Afghanistan after the takeover by the Taleban, and also, where this gear is from. I have no intention to go into a comprehensive research, but I would like to use some publicly available figures as an example, and some simple logical conclusions, in order to at least point into the direction of a staggering dimension of weapons we are talking about.

Let me begin, therefore, with a few things which we know, and a few things which we do not know much about, at least publicly.

We do know that the Taleban themselves have lots of weaponry. Perhaps we do not really know, or only have confidential knowledge about the numbers, and the type of weaponry. For making my argument this is less relevant. We do know that they have enough weapons, ammunition, and explosives which allowed them to fight an entire army and a set of police organisations in a warfare where the Afghan military and police were only able to hold their ground, still loosing control over significant swaths of Afghan territory as long as the international military campaign provided superior capacities and capabilities, meaning for example air support, reconnaissance, drone firepower, specialised ground forces, and a whole international supply chain enabling the Afghan defense against this insurgency. Yet, the Taleban had enough military capability to conduct their insurgency, carrying out horrible atrocities along the way. They had and have an own supply chain, and they had and have an own financial and logistical structure for this supply chain. BBC’s report “Afghanistan: How do the Taliban make money?” gives you a sense.

How many weapons do we talk about which never were under Afghan governmental control and not under control of the Taleban, meaning, weapons in the hands of ordinary citizens, criminals, and terrorists such as ISIS-K? For future analysis, also this question will be relevant. From every experience in other zones of conflict and war it is self-evident that weapons circulate for all kinds of self-defense purposes, criminal purposes, and as instruments of terror. The situation of Afghanistan being a core area of the world’s poppy cultivation, opium production and trade, and heroin production and trade adds. There is simply no way to discard the amount of weapons which never were under any form of organisational control, be it the previous government, or the insurgency. In itself, this amounts to significant amounts of weapons which should be under control, because they are a threat.

How many weapons were left behind by hastily leaving international forces? We simply do not know. We do know that the international military had huge amounts, of course, and hopefully took as much of this gear out as possible. There is, however, indication that not everything was taken out. Here is an example for large weapons stockpiles which were simply burned to the ground, in order to make them unusable: Taleban video footage which was gained by the New York Times, indicating how the CIA burned down own facilities in Kabul before leaving. Those weapons in that video footage seem to be destroyed, however, we also know, at least in relation to some type of military gear, that the advancing Taleban took control of it. There is a lot of coverage about Taleban posing in military gear obtained from former military bases of the international coalition.

How many weapons, how much ammunition, how many explosives were in the possession of the Afghan military and security apparatus before the Taleban took over? Here we may, at least, come up with some figures about what the international community donated to the security apparatus. Whether we do have oversight about the Afghan security forces own procurement processes, I don’t know. I’m a pessimist, I doubt we know much. And the knowledge about what type of gear came from international aid, it may be kept as sensitive information, may be also because of some shame we may feel. But here are two links to professional investigative research on this topic, and here they only serve as examples, proper work requires much more: (1) “Staggering costs – staggering numbers”, a Forbes magazine attempt to look into military equipment and weapons left behind in Afghanistan because the equipment was donated to Afghan military and security; (2) “Afghanistan: Black Hawks and Humvees – military kit now with the Taliban”, BBC reporting also attempts to identify how much heavy military equipment now is under Taleban control. For starters, they list 43 MD-530 helicopters, 33 C208/AC208 planes, 33 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, 23 A-29 light attack air planes, 32 MI-17 helicopters, and 3 C-130 Hercules military cargo planes known as useable in-country as of 30 June 2021. They go on with staggering numbers of vehicles, including 3012 Humvees, and 31 Mobile Strike Force Vehicles. They also list at least 3598 M4 carbines. Like everyone else, BBC scrambles all qualified guesswork attempting to estimate how much of this equipment is in country, and unter Taleban control. Taken together, it is really not difficult to assume that the amount of Small Arms and Light Weapons which were part of the internationally donated equipment over twenty years will be in the milions.

These questions and examples are enough to make my point. We are talking about a country armed to the teeth.

Importantly, the next question relates to how much control there is over these weapons, and by whom. This leads to an attempted threat assessment, and I put that out in my next article.

Weapons – Ammunition – Explosives – A way how to assist in controlling them

September 1, 2021September 1, 2021 / stefanfeller / 1 Comment

I began my day by reading a guest essay in the New York Times by Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy. In “Afghanistan Was a Wake-Up Call. Europe Needs to Step Up.” the Union’s Foreign Policy Chief dives into security issues on a strategic level. Because, the situation in Afghanistan and its wider context is confronting us with a gargantuan collection of challenges which we only begin to understand. Of course, security implications require the same attention as the humanitarian suffering already does.

I want to focus on one specific aspect: Weapons, ammunition, explosives.

On Afghanistan I will do that in my next article, but before doing that I want to spend a few sentences on how we support a comprehensive initiative in the field of weapons, ammunition, and explosives, in the Western Balkans. We do this since several years together with France, increasingly with the European Union, and many others. Good news stories often go unnoticed when facing the onslaught of catastrophic news. So, before looking at something strongly appearing to be a big mess, here a positive story first.

My current work revolves around advising the German Federal Foreign Office on German assistance to systematic efforts of governments and societies controlling all aspects of what is known as Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW), their ammunition, and explosives. It is a very holistic approach, and here is a good entry point on global aspects of SALW.

What does our support mean? Here some examples:

It means to help partners in improving meeting international and European standards on how to regulate trade and export according to international treaties;
It is about how to ensure safe use, storage, and transport of such items both in the military and the civilian realm;
It is about prevention of diversion of legally owned weapons, ammunition and explosives into criminal channels;
It is about fighting the use of weapons for criminal purposes, about detecting and deterring organised criminals and terrorists trafficking in weapons or using weapons;
It is about prevention of crime, about addressing domestic violence, and violence against women, children, and vulnerable groups;
It is about strengthening the role of women in policymaking related to how societies and States want to control all legal aspects on SALW, and to fight all illegal aspects.

That’s already a long list, and more often than not the topic only catches the attention of the general public when there is a horrific terror attack, such as the Paris attacks of 2015. Since two weeks, the situation in Afghanistan is drawing increasingly attention to it.

The key principle is assistance to efforts coming from States and societies themselves. In the case of the Western Balkans it concretely means the joint efforts of six jurisdictions (I will refer to Kosovo with reference to UN Security Council Resolution 1244) Albania, Bosnia & Hercegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North-Macedonia and Serbia. With assistance, they have developed a systematic regional roadmap. These jurisdictions have given this roadmap to themselves, their legislators adopted it.

It began as an exercise where the Western Balkans appreciated help, and it developed into an endeavor that now brings partners in the Western Balkans and in the European Union ever closer together. Germany invests a lot of political support, expertise, and a significant financial contribution, into a coordinated support of donors and international implementing organisations who work together under a specific umbrella of coordination. Assistance is implemented by the United Nations Development Programme UNDP, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime UNODC, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe OSCE, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NATO.

In a very comprehensive and coordinated way this goes beyond, but critically includes, the work of law enforcement and criminal justice within the six juridictions of the Western Balkans, and their cooperation with Interpol, Europol, Frontex, and others. Moreover, we now see partners acting in a joint interest, less and less as neighbors, more and more as being part of something joint. If you are interested in details, you will find an entry point into this whole universe of comprehensive assistance here, any quick web research will give you tons of more resources. And watch out for more news. There is a high-level conference coming up early September, taking stock half-way through the intitiative. I will post public statements here in my blog once I am authorised to do that.

The way how this roadmap has been developed by the governments in the Western Balkans themselves, and the way how donors and partners assist them in it, has found international recognition, including inside the European Union itself, and the United Nations. Recently, the UN explicitly praised the Western Balkans roadmap inititiative as a role model that could be adapted to other situations. And Germany already supports the interest which has been raised in the Carribean, or in West Africa. Both regions make good progress in developing their own tailormade approach.

Making it clear from where I look at select aspects of what can be seen as challenges within the Afghanistan context is meant to indicate two experiences which I support:

The relevance of weapons, ammunition and explosives in a global threat environment at times goes underrated, until a catastrophe is hitting the news again. The threat is constant, and in my experience it is growing;

There are successful models on assisting countries in conflict; countries emerging from conflict; countries being confronted with conflict in their immediate neighborhood; and countries that are well advanced on their long path into building lasting peace. We have alternatives to the failed models of the past. Initiatives like the one I have described above are important examples for something that can be used in many other topical and geographical areas.

They are relevant because of the key principles of assistance, partnership, and coherence of support efforts which I have touched upon above.

Schulfunk – Waffenschmugglern auf der Spur – Tracking weapons traffickers

March 25, 2021March 25, 2021 / stefanfeller / Leave a comment

Schulfunk – An almost forgotten German expression from my childhood: Starting as a radio broadcasting service 70 years ago, meant to contribute to re-educating post-war Germany, Schulfunk developed into effective knowledge transfer, supplementing school education. Contemporary follow-on programs still exist, but the ancient label “Schulfunk” may get forgotten at some point. Today, it is about public broadcasters serving on their obligation to contribute to fact-based educational programs.

In a more sarcastic sense, I labeled any True Crime movie, or fictional reporting about crime, and movies about detectives solving crime cases, “Schulfunk”. Starting my professional career as a detective police officer myself, I was never too much interested in spending my evenings watching True Crime stories, or detective fiction. I found these stories too much detached from reality. Believe it or not, I preferred, and prefer until today, Science Fiction and Fantasy movies. Everyone has a weirdo side, right?

So, starting off a little bit on the funny side this morning, the screenshot below is about a piece of investigative journalism which was broadcasted by the German news channel “ZDF” March 24, 2021. Until March 24, 2023, you can watch this piece using the following link: https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/zdfzoom/zdfzoom-waffenschmugglern-auf-der-spur-100.html

It pretty much is about my current line of work. It is in German language, but my small complaint sits with another issue, not the language.

Part of why I sarcastically labeled crime stories “Schulfunk”, distancing myself a little bit, has to do with the drama which appears to be a necessary part of broadcasting. Whether TV, movies on the big screen, or Youtube, nothing goes without music, and nothing goes without some sensational takes with which the subject matter at hand is presented in a way causing interest on the side of people looking for something to watch.

I get it, it is part of the human nature. I used it myself, when I was designing media campaigns for my colleagues and friends in Bosnia & Herzegovina during my time as Head of the European Union Police Mission. Just on a personal note, I find the dramatic music in this piece about weapons trafficking from the Western Balkans a little bit too heavy for my personal taste.

But after getting that out the way, I just wanted to reference this piece of journalism in my blog. And I wanted to do this without too much commenting, explaining, or describing my part in the work of my government, together with colleagues from France, and the European Union, in supporting the implementation of a strategic initiative which the six jurisdictions of the Western Balkans have agreed upon themselves. (We talk about jurisdictions, instead of States, in order to include Kosovo under the United Nations Resolution 1244 within a politically sensitive context).

If you want to understand what the Roadmap for a sustainable solution to the illegal possession, misuse and trafficking of SALW and their ammunition in the Western Balkans by 2024, is about, I would invite you to begin with browsing the website of SEESAC (https://www.seesac.org). SEESAC is the South Eastern and Eastern Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons. It holds an instrumental role in supporting the implementation of this Roadmap, which was jointly developed by the Western Balkans Authorities, under the auspices of Germany and France, in coordination with the European Union, and with SEESAC’s technical assistance.

The Roadmap is the most comprehensive arms control exercise in the region, covering all key aspects from securing the stockpiles of weapons and ammunition to mainstreaming gender in SALW control and countering firearms trafficking. It represents a firm commitment to addressing the threats posed by the misuse and illicit possession of weapons in the Western Balkans and Europe at large and is a result of strong cooperation on SALW control in the region which SEESAC has fostered since 2002.

I especially like the final stretches of the reportage. After some good investigative work attempting to make connections between trafficking of weapons, ammunition and explosives through crime and organised criminal groups on the one side and some disturbing indications about some of these weapons and explosives ending up increasingly in the hands of right-wing extremists in Germany, the documentary ends with explaining the Roadmap which I referenced above. Bojana Balon, the Head of SEESAC, is being interviewed. And some impressive pictures deal with what we prefer to do with these weapons: Seizing them, and destroying them.

So, in the best tradition of the gun with the knot in its barrel which you find on the compound of United Nations Headquarters, here a few pictures. No need to reference any copyright, I took all these pictures myself.

Stefan Feller

Peace, Security, and Justice. Conflict, Trauma, and Reconciliation

SALW – Small Arms and Light Weapons