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Dr. Paul Oestreicher is the visiting fellow for Peace and Conflict studies and is in Dunedin working on a project concerning the abolition of armed violence in the world. A former editor of Critic, Oestreicher grew up in Dunedin after escaping Nazi Germany with his parents in 1939. After studying in England and Europe, Oestreicher became one of the founding members of Amnesty International in the 1960s and went on to chair the organisation in Britain for a number of years. I sat down with him last week to talk about his role there and the research he is involved in at the moment.

You are working on a project with Professor Kevin Clements on the abolition of war. As it is such a wide-ranging subject, how are you going about constructing your argument?
My research project is not concerned with any particular conflict, it is concerned with the social psychology of human beings. Can we turn around people's consciousness [to the belief] that armed violence is wrong? There will always be conflict as long as there are human beings. In private life, we generally manage to live together in spite of our conflicts. But collectively, that is not what we do. Collectively, as nations, as tribes, as religions, we still think it's okay, if the cause is good enough, to kill each other. 
 
You seem to divide your argument between conflict on a large and small scale. What is it about collectivism that leads to such violence?
I am basically saying that we have to apply the micro to the macro. In other words, we have to learn to do collectively what we have already more or less learnt to do individually. We have to be at war with all those things that glorify killing, including the kind of patriotism that is still deeply embedded in every nation.
 
Are there any current developments that you view as promising in terms of challenging this perception of war?
Steps are now being taken to see that you can begin to see armies as a way to actually stop war and stop one from breaking out. In other words, peacekeeping operations are now a part of the international agenda. This is a completely new development in human society and is a step in the road to what I am aiming at, where we no longer have national armies at all. 
 
Which conflicts concern you at the moment?
My own political heart is in the conflict between Jews and Palestinians. I have a Jewish background, I have a vested interest – as I think all human beings should have – that the Jewish people should survive. But at the same time, I think the state of Israel is aggressive; it is inexcusably occupying land that does not belong to it. 
 
Are you aware of the present situation in the Mediterranean where a flotilla of humanitarian aid vessels are being blocked by Israel as they want to get supplies into Gaza?
Yes, this is just one example of Israeli politics which is inhumane and damnable. Israel is pursuing policies that in the long run will only hurt Israel, it is creating so much emnity and hatred and anti-semitism around the world. I belong to an organisation called Jews for Justice for Palestinians, it is quite a strong organisation in Britain. 
 
You are a founding member of Amnesty International. How did you become involved in the movement?
Well, we were a little group who met in Peter Benenson's office. It was born in his mind and he gathered people around him, and I was one of those people. We began to campaign for the ready release of people in prison around the world who should not be in prison. It was a very humble beginning to what is the biggest human rights organisation in the world, and I was there in Britain in the outset, stayed with it, and became its chair in Britain in the 1970s.
 
What did this role entail?
Administratively, it meant I was the chairman of the committee that employed the staff. The reality is that as I happened to be gifted as a journalist I could make Amnesty more known. I was on television every week, I was writing newspaper articles – that was my contribution to Amnesty.