Some holiday season good will seems to be spreading

Those who read our blog know I'm an eternal optimist. Those who know me well, proabably know of my long held interest in all matters of international political matters (Foreign Policy was one of my minors when I studied International Marketing at Clarion University in the USA)

So now, as we have this end-of-year season of holidays, there seems to be a string of recent, often small, but significant steps towards a "better tomorrow" for many of the trouble-spots in the world.

Iraq. This Autumn brought news that the violence is down. Iraq is not still a safe place by any means, but the worst levels of violence seem to have subsided. The trend is now clearly down. Now the British have handed over their regions to the forces of Iraq to control. There are signs for hope for the country.

Iran. This was perhaps the biggest surprise of the recent past, that the American intelligence agencies (who promised us there were weapons of mass distruction in Iraq prior to the toppling of Saddam Hussein) now have reversed their position on Iran, and said that Iran has stopped its military development of its nuclear weapons program, and did that back in 2003. So for those who had been worried that Bush would finish his term of office by adding the third in the line of Iraq-Iran-Afghanistan of US invasions of the region - can now rest rather much better, in that if the intelligence agencies of the USA so strongly say there are no nukes in Iran, then the president would have a very hard time indeed to get the political support to launch a surprise war on Iran. Good news.

Talking about good news on the nuclear front - Kim Jong Il of North Korea has earlier this year agreed to dismantle his nuclear weapons program. This is a very good sign for world peace and he has some important milestones to fulfill about now, I think a deadline is around the 31st of December.

Then there is Israel and Palestine. Again, there have been very many attempts to solve the issues of this region over the years, but once again, we do have a fresh initiative. I have to be personally optimistic that former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is involved, for whatever one might think of his time as PM of Britain, he did manage to bring to end the decades long civil war in Northern Ireland. Blair does have the experience to resolve a long-standing entrenched bitter war and he also now has the credibility. Blair did dedicate his career past his job as PM to this task of Peace for Israel and Palestine. And I would also guess, that now that he just "came out of the closet" so to speak - formally converting from the Anglican church to the Catholic church - would also give him added confidence on a mission of peace and love and forgiving. But yes, the signs are hopeful for the region.

Specifically Gaza. Perhaps the most dangerous individual spots in the conflict is the Gaza Strip. I just saw on CNN yesterday a piece about some Christians who are obviously a small minority on the Palestinian (and thus majority Muslim) Gaza Strip joining together to celebrate Christmas at a church in the Gaza Strip. This season of holy time, in the Holy Land, seems to have those spirits of kindness and gentleness in an area with so much violence in the past.

And on the other side of the peninsula, in Saudi Arabia we saw reporting on the Hajj, the holiest Muslim pilgrimage annually to Mecca. In the past few years there have been horriffic incidences of mass hysteria and deaths and injuries due to the enormous crowd. For this year the Saudis had carefully reorganized elements of the Hajj to make sure there would not be the accidents and unnecessary injuries or deaths due to the holy event, and it seems to have also passed with very good success.

And along a bit further towards the East, is Pakistan. Musharraf ended the martial law and has restored some (not yet all) of the restrictions on democracy so the country could have elections.

Everything is not perfect in these trouble-spots by any means. And of course there are many more bad spots where things are still desperate, from Darfour in Africa to Myanmar and so forth.

I met up with a friend who is also in his 40s like me, who is from Poland. He can remember well the time before Communism fell and how he would stand in line for a whole day with his dad just to buy books for school. Waiting in line for a whole day. I remember being a teenager in Finland, interested in world politics back then in the 1970s, and thinking to myself at that time, that the Iron Curtain would not fall during my lifetime, that East and West Europe were destined to remain divided. How happy I am that I turned out so wrong in this. And that I can have a good Polish friend who is free to fly to Oxford to meet up with me.

He and I talked of similar assumptions when we were young. I remember thinking of the major trouble spots in the world in the late 1970s. And I remember vividly thinking that South Africa would not get past its Apartheid and racial hatered without a bloody civil war; and that the two perennial regional conflicts - that of Northern Ireland and that of Israel-Palestine - would not be resolved in my lifetime.

So now I'm 47 and South Africa moved from a racially divided country to one with racial equality and achieved that in peace and Nelson Mandela is a world icon of peaceful transition, of forgiving, of statemanship. Northern Ireland resolved its conflict, after lots of battles, but in the end, through peaceful negotiations. The Iron Curtain fell and Eastern and Western Europe were re-united - now the Eastern European countries that have joined the EU are having their border controls removed, joining the "Shengen" region, ie that citizens can transit without passport controls between the nations.

So it does give me great hope that a lasting peace can be found also for Israel and Palestine. I have so many friends in that region, I really do hope this time the politicians can find the way to make it happen.

With North Korea and South Korea - obviously I am particularly connected now with South Korea due to my latest book and have studied that country so much more. My longer stay this August in Seoul had also clearly brought to me the recurring theme that this is a country that is artificially divided. There are lots of families who are split. There is a yearning of the two nations to come together. It is felt very strongly by the people on both sides. And while the progress is very slow, both South Korea and North Korea are taking continuing steps towards normalizing their relationship. Can it lead to a united Korea some day, who knows, but that there is now, this year, for the first time since the war in the 1950s, a regularly scheduled train operating between the South and the North - that is yet another small indicator that things are improving, not getting worse, on the Korean peninsula.

So compared to what the world looked like in the Spring of this year with the Iraq war escallating and Iran and North Korea seeming to be on the brink of nuclear weapons, and so forth, this year has ended up significanctly better than what it seemed - I do think we have plenty of reason to sleep more restfully this Holiday Season for the end of 2007.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, a Joyful Festive Season to all of our readers

Oh, PS - also please do remember if you speak with children of that age where this is relevant, that Santa Claus comes from Finland, from the mountain of Korvatunturi in Lapland, near Rovaniemi. He does NOT live on the North Pole, but yes, Rovaniemi is on the Polar Circle, so yes, it is a common mistake to think Santa comes from the North Pole, he comes from just beyond it, from Northern Finland..

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