The nonviolent personality

Contents Introduction v Foreword to the English edition ix Preface xi 1 Several major challenges to a culture of peace 1 1. Notes to the translation 43 Biographical sketches 47 Bibliography 49 Index 53 iv Introduction Why a translation now The book's original setting is in the 'post Cold War era' and the élan to create a better future in the new Millennium. The many conflicts that emerged in the 1990s were thought to be due to the fall of the Berlin wall twenty years ago in 1989, because the post-World War II bi-polar world of communism versus capitalism had communism as 'loser' and consequently there were, on the one hand, less incentives to support proxy-wars by either side and, on the other hand, it opened up spaces for asserting influence by regional actors. In addition, the USA assumed the role of sole superpower with capitalism as the winning ideology, formulated most aptly in the document by the Project for a New American Century as a novel version of imperialism and 'empire'. The end of the Cold War was perceived by those who considered themselves the winners as having been offered a carte blanche for a new boost of capitalism and the quest for (economic) growth on a global scale—globalization of exploitation. The problems Pontara describes in the first chapter have not been ameliorated, let alone resolved, over the past 20 years, but have worsened for, primarily, the people in (commonly referred to as 'the West' despite its diversity), but also in the latter countries due to a gradual, but steady, breakdown of the institutional infrastructure that the social democracies had built up after World War II and with it, the unraveling of the fabric of society not unlike Angelo Tasca 1 described about post-World War I Italy. In this respect, the problems are even more actual and urgent to address than 15 years ago when la personalità nonviolenta was written. At the moment of writing this introduction, the international landscape has changed considerably, both politically and economically. Regarding the former, (i) Russia had 1 Angelo Tasca (1892 – 1960) was one of the founding members of the youth socialist movement in Turin and later on member of the Presidium of the Communist International. His book La nascita del fascismo [the birth of fascism] (original in French: Le marche sur Rome) provides an analysis how Mussolini and c.s. managed to …