Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Leeds Beckett hosts Peace Lecture with Anna Sundström
‘Common Security – the way forward for a failing world?’ will be presented by Anna Sundström, Secretary General at Olof Palme International Center in Stockholm. Professor Dave Webb and Anna Sundström will look at the concept that nations and populations can only feel safe when their neighbours also feel safe, discussing conflicts from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the current war in Ukraine.
Common Security
This year marks the 40th anniversary of an Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues. The Commission was established in 1980, following a decision of the UN General Assembly. It was led by Olof Palme, who was prime minister of Sweden from 1969-71. He was known to oppose the United States' role in the Vietnam War and the crushing of the Prague Spring by the Soviet Union and was also active in campaigning against nuclear weapons proliferation.
The Olof Palme Commission presented its report at the height of the Cold War in 1982 and it was based on the concept of ‘Common Security’ – the idea that states cannot obtain security just by taking decisions about their own military deployment, but nations and populations can only feel safe when their neighbours/counterparts also feel safe. As the report says, “states can no longer seek security at each other's expense; it can be obtained only through cooperative undertakings”.
The world lies at a crossroads
In the last few years, it has become clear that cooperation between states has become more urgent than ever. Instead, faced with the immediate threats of climate change, nuclear war and global pandemics, the world seems more divided than ever with the gap between rich and poor growing wider and threats and counter threats of war and violence rising to dangerous levels.
The world lies at a crossroads, faced with a choice between a path based on confrontation and aggression or one committed to a transformative agenda of peace and common security. Recognising the need for change and the anniversary of the Commission Report, the International Peace Bureau (IPB, founded in 1891-2) began discussions with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Olof Palme International Center and together they produced a new ‘Common Security 2022’ report presented earlier this year.
The changing landscape
The geostrategic situation in world politics is different today than it was at the beginning of the eighties. Then, there was then an unpopular build-up of nuclear weapons in Europe and a widespread fear of a nuclear confrontation with memories of how close we came to annihilation during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Today we see a seemingly intractable conflict in Ukraine which could escalate and vastly increase the possibility of a nuclear war – either intentional or by accident. The peace movement of the eighties was a substantial political force noticed and recognised by governments. Today, the peace movement as an international movement is much weaker. Are the arguments and recommendations of the Common Security report still relevant to today?
Olof Palme was returned to power in Sweden in 1982. However, on 28 February 1986, he was shot dead as he left a cinema in Stockholm with his wife Lisbeth. In his memory, Michael McGowan, Euro-MP for Leeds at that time, established an annual Leeds Olof Palme Memorial Peace Lecture in 1987 and it is appropriate that this year the lecture will be presented by a co-author of ‘Common Security 2022’, Anna Sundström. Anna is Secretary-General of the Olof Palme International Center and has previously worked as international secretary and policy advisor in the Swedish Parliament and as a policy advisor at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Book your place for the lecture and discussion on Tuesday 18 October at 7pm.