Jonathan Power

Jonathan Power is British, born in 1941 in North Mimms and grew up in Oldham and Liverpool. He is a journalist, filmmaker and writer who is best known for his weekly column on foreign affairs that ran in the International Herald Tribune (now the International New York Times) for 20 years.^[1]

Background

For twenty one years his longer articles appeared in Encounter magazine and Prospect magazine. His Encounter article, "The New Proletariat" (September, 1974) was regarded as a profound analysis of racial strife to come.^[2] His interviews of leading political figures from every continent have been printed all over the world. A number of them caused political waves, including the ones with George Arbatov, President Mikhail Gorbachev's foreign policy advisor and Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor.^[3] Also the one with Indira Gandhi, former prime minister of India.^[4] These followed an earlier one with Arbatov which became the cover story in The Economist.^[5] One of his latest was with his old school friend, Sir Paul McCartney, talking about foreign policy issues.^[6] McCartney wrote an introduction to Jonathan's book "Like Water on Stone- The Story of Amnesty International" (Penguin, 2002).

Education

He was a pupil at the Liverpool Institute High School. He did his bachelors degree at the University of Manchester and masters in agricultural economics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Career

Before his masters he worked advising peasant farmers in Tanzania and then after his masters he worked on the staff of Martin Luther King in the slums of Chicago, where he lived near Dr King's own apartment. Later, he became a journalist but continued his community work in a Dickensian London neighbourhood.

He began his journalistic career in 1968 with a one hour documentary talk, "Black Power", on the BBC Third Program. It received much praise in reviews and one of the highest audience positive ratings in the programs of that year. He made a number of subsequent documentaries for Radio 3 and 4. His foreign affairs column is now syndicated to newspapers in Asia, Africa and Canada. Over the years he has written columns for the New York Times,(where he was a guest columnist),^[7] the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and contributed many articles to the Times of London.^[8]

Prizes

Jonathan received a Silver Medal at the Venice Film Festival, 1972, for the BBC documentary film,"It's Ours Whatever They Say", about a group of mothers who fight for a piece of railway land to be made into a playground after one of their children fell to his death while playing on the roof of their block of council flats. He made 10 full length documentary films for the BBC, World in Action and This Week. His film, "The Diplomatic Style of Andrew Young" was repeatedly shown on the BBC and in the USA on PBS.

Other work

He was editorial adviser to the Independent Commission on Nuclear Disarmament and Common Security, chaired by the Swedish prime minister, Olof Palme. According to Willy Brandt, the Chancellor of West Germany, it had a great influence on Mikhail Gorbachev's foreign policy when he was president of the Soviet Union. He was a member of the original BBC committee that conceived the idea for BBC World. He was the chairman at Manchester University of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and led the biggest demonstration in the UK on the first day of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was also a member of London University's Anti-Apartheid Society where he invited Oliver Tambo to be its honorary chairman. He was the founder of the Haslemere Group, an action group focusing on development in the Third World. He is a member of Sweden's Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research which keeps a library of all his columns.^[9]

From time to time he has been quoted in prominent media outlets- notably in an editorial in the Washington Post for his views on desertification^[10] and in a number of British and US newspapers and TV for his opposition to Rupert Murdoch.^[11] Also for his criticism of UN censorship.

He has consulted for the International Red Cross, the World Council of Churches, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, UNICEF and the Catholic Church's Commission for Justice and Peace in England and Wales.

Latest Book

His latest book "Conundrums of Humanity- The Big Foreign Policy Questions of Our Age" was reviewed positively in Prospect magazine by Author and Op-ed columnist William Pfaff^[12] Pfaff, America's most respected columnist on foreign affairs, wrote: "When Jonathan Power told a friend that the book he was writing was meant to solve 11 of the most formidable contemporary threats to peace and human rights, the friend replied that Power must be bidding for the Nobel prize. George Bernard Shaw once said that all progress depends on the unreasonable man. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world as it is, but the unreasonable man is determined to change it. This book is filled with reason, good sense and optimism. His is a powerful statement of ways to make the world better. He is unreasonably good, as demonstrated by his commitment to the developing world, the fortunes of the poor, the defense of human rights, and his devotion to the society's progress. Is that worth the Nobel prize? I say, why not?"

Previous Books

"Economic Development" Longmans, 1968

“World of Hunger”, (together with Anne-Marie Holenstein), Maurice Temple Smith, 1976.

“Migrant Workers in Western Europe and the USA” (together with Anna Hardman and Marguerita Garling), Pergamon, 1979.

“Against Oblivion” Fontana/ HarperCollins 1981.

“Vision of Hope” (on 50 years of the UN), Regency, 1995.

“Like Water on Stone- the Story of Amnesty International”, Penguin, 2002.

"Conundrums of Humanity", Nijhoff/University of Lund, 2007.

"Conundrums of Humanity: The Big Foreign Policy Questions of Our Day", Amazon, 2013.

"Exposing War Crimes and Trying the War Criminals", Nijoff. (Now being written.)

References