Songs without Borders by Johan Galtung

I went to see Johan Galgung speaking at the AF Building, Lund's University, Sweden. He is a Norwegian professor, working at the Transcend Institute. He is seen as the pioneer of peace and conflict research and founded the PRIO - International Peace Research Institute in Oslo. He talked about the The Coming Decline and Fall of the US Empire and how to reach peace in the new world context. This is one of the text he wrote last year:

"The songs are from different parts of the world, and in
different languages. Most of them are well known. Some are peace
songs.

They all have two things in common.

Even if the content may point in any direction, the songs
are peace. They say yes to life. They are optimistic. And they not
only say it, they sing it. By singing these beautiful songs together
we say yes to each other, to each other together.

Second, they are songs without borders. They speak to all
of us regardless of gender, generation, race, class, nation and state
divides. They are truly globalizing. They are unifying, not dividing.

These are songs for a world where all genders, generations,
races, classes, nations and states struggle together for a life in
dignity for all. The songs include us all, as distinct from the old-
fashioned national anthems that address only a tiny slice of humanity.
You may also like to sing them on the day devoted to those anthems.

Art has an amazing potential for lifting us, uniting us -
and not only the arts of poetry and music, any art:

ART AND PEACE

Let us be lifted by the arts
like the artists have lifted them
upwards, outwards, beyond the ordinary
beyond the run of the mill;
making us see far
beyond borders and cleavages
In our untidy human landscape
into other eyes that
also have been lifted
beyond the ordinary
to be united
in peace."