The role of diasporas in world peace.(FROM THE EDITOR)(Editorial)

Globalization of the world's economy and the migrations of people for political and economic reasons has caused a collision of cultures within nearly every country. While vast empires have historically been more pluralistic as they contain migrations of cultural groups from one part of an empire to another, twenty-first century migrations are impacting even the most homogeneous states.

German philosopher Karl Jaspers pioneered the idea of an "Axial Age" that occurred between 800 to 200 B.C.E., when the foundations that underlie current major civilizational spheres came into being:

 
  Extraordinary events are crowded into this period. In China 
  lived Confucius and Lao Tse, all the trends in Chinese philosophy 
  arose... In India it was the age of the Upanishads and of Buddha; as 
  in China, all philosophical trends, including skepticism and 
  materialism, sophistry and nihilism, were developed. In Iran 
  Zarathustra put forward his challenging conception of the cosmic 
  process as a struggle between good and evil; in Palestine prophets 
  arose: Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Deutero-Isaiah; Greece produced 
  Homer, the philosophers Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato, the tragic 
  poets, Thucydides and Archimedes. All the vast development of 
  which these names are a mere intimation took place in those few 
  centuries, independently and almost simultaneously in China, India 
  and the West. (1) 

The axial age was an ancient period of globalization when ships explored the world and peoples of different tribes and civilizations interacted with one another in commerce and large urban seaports. Many tribal societies became absorbed by the cultures of these larger societies as they became members of ancient diasporas.

A number of thinkers believe the present time is an analogous period and have proposed that we are in a second axial age, where the main cultural spheres are now colliding with one another on a global scale. These developments have associated problems of minorities of one culture living in nation-states rooted in another culture. Protection of their rights and dignity often becomes an issue, as is their adjustment to the host society. Another problem is that the members of a diaspora can accumulate resources and power in their host society that can influence events in their homeland, including policy shaping or support for political revolution.

The members of a diaspora, standing between two cultural worlds, can help bring significant change in both the host country and the homeland. These changes can either lead to war or peace. For example, the current war in Iraq is partly the result of the influence of the Iraqi diaspora in the United States.

Our first article, by Bahar Baser and Ashok Swain of the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at Uppsala University, looks at the possibilities for diasporas as peacemakers. They begin with an overview of the existing studies and the list of groups that are perceived as revolutionary or terrorist, those who seem to get all of the attention. Then they discuss how diasporas are leading to delocalizing, and globalizing, many of the conflicts in the world. ...