The argument of this paper is that for a long time we in the peace movement have been looking in the wrong places when we’ve been looking for the deepest roots of war. This has led to misdirection in creating strategies for abolishing war.
The common argument against the effort to get rid of war is that violence is innate in human nature, and that therefore there will always be war.
I would like to suggest that arguing against this position is the wrong move.
If we as…
In popular myth, the Second World War has been cast as the last just war. Since Hitler was an evil tyrant who murdered millions of Jewish people, Britain and America had no option but to fight him. Churchill and Roosevelt were towering heroes, who did everything they could to minimise the effects of war on civilians, in order to rescue Europe from oppression.
Human Smoke is a welcome debunking of this legend. In it, Nicholson Baker has put together an impressive account of the origins…
Chinese-American activist-artist Paul Chan embodies another aphorism from Robert Capa (see left): “Like the people you shoot and let them know it.” His three-part contribution to the London Barbican Art Gallery’s exhibition On the Subject of War includes films made of his “enemies”, in which it is clear he has indeed expressed affection and concern for those he is meant to fear.
Chan travelled to Iraq with US peace group Voices in the Wilderness in 2002, moved about independently and…
As I made my way around the upper floor of London’s Barbican Art Gallery, I gradually realised that I’d come with a preconception, an assumption which had turned out to be wildly wrong. I’d presumed naïvely that an art exhibition entitled “This Is War!” would be basically an anti-war exhibition.
The Robert Capa-Gerda Taro photography exhibition (focussed on the Spanish Civil War) on the top floor is actually a pro-war exhibition, though no less fascinating for all that. It…
“Peggy [his mother] became a flame of optimism in my young life [during WW2]. And when I once asked what was the point of struggling with my homework when we were all going to die, she replied: “By the time you grow up, they may have found a cure for that ...” “She asked me repeatedly [during the Israeli siege of Lebanon in 1982] why governments spend so much money on guns.” (p793.)
For nearly thirty years, Fisk has been a journalist in the Middle East - through peace, war…
The main aim of this book, as its editors make clear at the outset, is to provide a collection of readings on the ethics of war that will “prove useful to many students, teachers and researchers”. What they have produced is likely to prove an invaluable resource for many readers for years to come.
The book has a variety of strengths. First, there is its sheer size, with nearly 700 pages of readings. The editors have not stinted on the index, which itself runs to nearly 40 pages, and…
A quiet revolution took place at the Avery Hill campus of Greenwich University from 7 to 12 September, as the UK section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) hosted their International Meetings and seminars. There were more than one hundred women from 25 countries, covering all five continents.
Go Y-Wilpfers!One vital part of the gathering was the Gertrud Baer Seminar: “Peace, Power and Participation”, organised by the new dynamic, international network…
The Peace Community of San Jose' de Apartado' consists of around 1,200 people - men, women, youths and above all children. We demand respect from the armed actors in the region of Uraba.
In our founding declaration, made on 23 March 1997, we laid down various important internal rules for the Community, such as: that nobody should bear arms, that nobody should give information to any side of the conflict, and that nobody should supply food to any side of the conflict. This remains our…
Peace Journalism should give a fair and balanced report on conflict without forgetting to set the context in which the fighting takes place.
This is what News from the Holy Land, an educational video for media students, civil society groups and NGOs, tells us. Using the example of the Israel-Palestine conflict, Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick seek to show that in focusing on bloodshed and violence, standard news reports give British audiences the impression that the two…
In last month's issue of Peace News (PN2472) Eddy Canfor-Dumas made the case for a Ministry for Peace as part of the government. However, it seems he is so deeply rooted in government thinking that he didn't even feel the need to explain why a ministry should be a good idea.
We have ministries for everything that we (we? Or the government?) think is important, and obviously, peace is important, so we need a ministry as “part of government dedicated to pursuing and…
For a number of reasons, and this book explores some of them, “just war” theory has come under various kinds of strain in recent years.
As a result, some would seek to jettison it altogether, arguing that it is no longer relevant because the world has changed in too many ways since the theory was developed and formulated. Some try to patch it up on the basis that having something is better than having nothing, but without any real commitment to it. Some, however, continue to insist…
Norman Kember, the British pacifist released after being imprisoned in Iraq for almost four months, has returned home to face a predictable lack of understanding of his pacifist stance - just as his captors in Iraq themselves showed little sympathy towards his pacifism.
He had been one of four activists from the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) network who were abducted in Iraq on 26 November (see the cover story in December/January's PN), whilst there to support human rights for…
In the UK we think education is important -- so we have a ministry for education. We think health and the environment are important -- so we have ministries for them. If we think peace is important, shouldn't we have a Ministry for Peace? A part of government dedicated to pursuing and promoting peace?
But what exactly would a Ministry for Peace do? Because isn't “peace” a woolly concept that can mean almost anything?
For many peace workers,though, its meaning is clear. To work…
Anti-war activists have always pondered the irony of boxing champion Muhammad Ali having claimed conscientious objector status when he was drafted for the Vietnam War.
As one of the world's best and most highly paid-fighters, it was boldly hypocritical for Ali to simultaneously declare qualms of conscience about the government's brand of sanctioned, bloody violence but not about his personally favourite sort. The irony was not lost on Ali's draft board, which rejected his CO claim…
The New Internationalist's mini books are packed with quotes, cartoons, photographs and nuggets of information, which makes them ideal for dipping into. These three titles pursue pacifist, environmental and animal rights agendas as one would expect from this magazine group, run by a co-op. The New Internationalist was originally sponsored by Oxfam, Christian Aid and the Cadbury and Rowntree Trusts, and still focuses on poverty and inequality.
Although most of the quotes support an…
