Dag Viljen Poleszynski

Dag is a student, colleague, collaborator and friend of Johan since the early 1970s.

My mentor, friend and colleague Johan Galtung passed away at Stabekk health center and hospice outside of Oslo on the morning of February 17, 2024. I followed his outstanding professional and intellectual activities for 50 years and would like to highlight his qualities not only as a world-renowned peace researcher and conflict mediator, but also as a warm, supportive and listening person.

Many misunderstood Galtung and to no avail tried to put him in a box. He was an eclectic person who saw several sides at the same time, i.e., not either/or, but both/and. His critics did not understand that he could see conflicts and people from several angles instead of portraying reality in black and white. He believed that many people who are considered “evil” could also have good qualities, even dictators and psychopaths.

Some perceived him as arrogant, but I experienced him as an attentive listener being open to new ideas and knowledge. He was not afraid to ask for advice where others had knowledge he did not have.

Among other things, he asked me for advice on nutrition and health and was open to follow and passing my advice on to others. I have experienced many professionals who are incredibly arrogant and who are unable to listen to others. This also applies to politics, which tends to become polarized. Johan was different – he also enjoyed being called just Johan, not only among friends.

Johan Galtung (1930–2024) was a researcher of world stature. For his work on peace and conflict research, he was awarded 13 honorary citizen, honorary professor, emeritus titles. He was a mathematician (Ph.D. 1956) and sociologist (Ph.D. 1957) from the University of Oslo and is considered the founder of peace and conflict research. He founded the Peace Research Institute (PRIO) in 1959, started the Journal of Peace Research in 1964 and was director of PRIO until 1970.

In 1969–1977, he was the world’s first professor of peace research at the University of Oslo before he left the Jante country Norway, where his many talents were not appreciated by leading politicians, partly because he was critical of Norway’s “big brother” the United States.

From 1977 he led a large, international research network called Goals, Processes and Indicators for Development (GPID) under the auspices of the United Nations University in Tokyo, in which the undersigned also participated. He summoned meetings and seminars with a common flute, which he mastered to perfection. As chairman of the meeting, he was not only an outstanding meeting leader, but he also shared stories and told funny jokes, often with a political twist.

Johan was musical and played the clarinet in his younger days. He was also someone who enjoyed life and loved to eat freshly picked currants with whipped cream from my garden when he came to visit in the summer. He was not afraid to praise others, and I remember well once when we were skiing in France, he spontaneously praised my skills on the slalom slope. As the world’s first professor of peace and conflict research, he has been instrumental in the establishment of a number of peace research institutes world-wide after he in the 1960s had taken the initiative to establish the Peace Research Institute (PRIO) in Oslo.

He was a true visionary and among others predicted the fall of the Soviet Union long before it happened and wrote about the decline of the United States, which he believed would start around 2020. In retrospect, this prediction is about to come true.

In sum, I miss Johan dearly for his humanity, dedication an unique ability to understand and interpret the world at all levels – micro, meso and macro.

PS
Johan was always playful. Here his Irene Galtung’s photo of him on Christmas evening 2020…

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