International Conscientious Objectors’ Day

Courtesy of the Peace Abbey, Millis MA.

Material submitted by Lewis Randa, who received an honorable discharge as a conscientious objector from the military during the Vietnam War in 1971.

CO Memorial Stone at Cambridge Friends Meeting, Cambridge, MA. A gift from the Peace Abbey Foundation

May 15 is International Conscientious Objectors Day. Although conscientious objection to war is not a hot media topic today, respect, admiration, and appreciation for conscientious objectors (COs) will be expressed (mostly distally) around the world this Friday May 15; see here, for example.

The Peace Abbey, in Sherborn, MA, maintains a site that provides numerous materials regarding concientious objection, including historical information, a copy of the  National Registry form , and a rich discussion of pacifism, reprinted here:

Pacifism is opposition to war and violence. The word pacifism was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud (1864–1921) and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ahimsa (to do no harm), which is a core philosophy in Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism. While modern connotations are recent, having been explicated since the 19th century, ancient references abound.

In Christianity, Jesus Christ‘s injunction to “love your enemies” and asking for forgiveness for his crucifiers “for they know not what they do” have been interpreted as calling for pacifism. In modern times, interest was revived by Leo Tolstoy in his late works, particularly in The Kingdom of God Is Within YouMohandas Gandhi (1869–1948) propounded the practice of steadfast nonviolent opposition which he called “satyagraha“, instrumental in its role in the Indian Independence Movement. Its effectiveness served as inspiration to Martin Luther King Jr.James LawsonJames Bevel,[2] Thich Nhat Hanh[3] and many others in the 1950s and 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. Pacifism was widely associated with the much publicized image of Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 with the “Tank Man“, where one protester stood in nonviolent opposition to a column of tanks.

Pacifism covers a spectrum of views, including the belief that international disputes can and should be peacefully resolved, calls for the abolition of the institutions of the military and war, opposition to any organization of society through governmental force (anarchist or libertarian pacifism), rejection of the use of physical violence to obtain political, economic or social goals, the obliteration of force, and opposition to violence under any circumstance, even defence of self and others. Historians of pacifism Peter Brock and Thomas Paul Socknat define pacifism “in the sense generally accepted in English-speaking areas” as “an unconditional rejection of all forms of warfare”.[4] Philosopher Jenny Teichman defines the main form of pacifism as “anti-warism”, the rejection of all forms of warfare.[5] Teichman’s beliefs have been summarized by Brian Orend as …’A pacifist rejects war and believes there are no moral grounds which can justify resorting to war. War, for the pacifist, is always wrong.’ In a sense the philosophy is based on the idea that the ends do not justify the means.[6]

Lewis Randa is a Quaker, pacifist, vegan, educator, and social change activist. He is the founder and director of The Life Experience School for children with disabilities (1972); The Peace Abbey, an Interfaith Center for the study and practice of Nonviolence and Pacifism (1988); The Special Peace Corps., an organization that provides community service programs for adults with mental challenges (1990); The Courage of Conscience Award, an international peace award for nonviolent contributions to peace and justice (1991); The National Registry for Conscientious Objection, a register for people of all ages to publicly state their refusal to participate in armed conflict (1992); The Pacifist Memorial, a national monument honoring pacifists throughout history (1994); The Veganpeace Animal Sanctuary, a safe haven for animals that have escaped from slaughterhouses following the rescue of Emily the Cow (1995); Stonewalk, a global peace walk that involves physically pulling a two-ton memorial stone for Unknown Civilians Killed in War (Documentary shown on PBS) (1999 – 2005); Citycare, an empowerment program for the homeless (2000); R.A.T.C., the college-based Reserve Activist Training Corps; and The Lavender House, a Group Home for adults with disabilities (2002).

Engaging in peace: A personal story (Part I)

By guest author, Dorothy Walsh, a lifelong peace activist

My journey in understanding the importance of peace and nonviolence for the world and for myself began in the aftermath of World War II as I learned about the horrors of the war and the Holocaust. Dot at Peace Abbey

This experience led to my personal commitment to never be supportive of violent resolution of conflicts.

Traveling and hitchhiking as a student in Europe after the war, I found myself asking every German I met if they had known about the concentration camps and what happened to the Jewish people. No one would answer me except an old woman in a hostel in West Berlin. She said, “We all knew.”

During the Vietnam War, I became active with local people by attending rallies and by housing some of the activists who were away from their homes. As a young mother, I had limited opportunity to demonstrate against the war, but for the first time I called myself a pacifist.

My commitment to the practice of nonviolence has been a lifelong challenge as I learned that it took more than participating in demonstrations to be a peacemaker.

My education, focusing on the roots and causes of violence, came from the “criminals” in the prison who were my teachers during the 20 years I spent as a member of a chaplaincy team and later as a program director for men incarcerated for domestic abuse.

I was able to learn and practice trust. Several times I saw the fruit of this value in helping to resolve a hostage situation and to settle serious conflicts.

During this time I created a home for people coming out of prison. We were only three people with families and children, but we managed to run the Home of Reconciliation for several years and provide support for men who had nothing and nowhere else to go.

Dot Walsh

The American Civil War and pacifism

Before 2011 draws to an end, we want to acknowledge that 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the U.S. Civil War. Following the election of Abraham Lincoln, 11 slave states seceded from the United States in 1861.Soldiers of Peace book by Thomas F. Curran

Most people educated in the U.S. have heard of General Robert E. Lee and General William Tecumseh Sherman and of Sherman’s destructive march through Georgia.

Moreover, most Americans have some notion of how deadly the Civil War was, even if they don’t have the facts and figures.

According to John Huddleston*, 620,000 soldiers died during this conflict—more Americans than in all the other wars combined, up through Vietnam. Huddleston estimates that 10% of all Northern males aged 20-45 and 40% of all Southern white males aged 18-40 died. By one estimate**, there were a total of 1,030,000 casualties–3% of the population.

On the other hand, it is likely that few Americans know that the conscription law for the Union allowed conscientious objectors to buy their way out of fighting. This law followed in the tradition of General George Washington, who excused young men from the Revolutionary War draft if they had a conscientious objection to war.

Moreover, few Americans have heard of the Universal Peace Union (UPU). Led by Alfred H. Love, the UPU was devoted to the idea of nonresistance, the belief that evil must not be met with violence, no matter how noble the cause.*** To learn more about the UPU and the early pacifist movement in the U.S., read the review of Curran’s book by Jeffrey McClurken.

* Huddleston, John.  Killing ground: Photographs of the Civil War and the changing American landscape. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

** Nofi, Al (2001-06-13). “Statistics on the war’s costs”. Louisiana State University. Archived from the original on 2007-07-11.

***Curran, Thomas F. Soldiers of peace: Civil War pacifism and the postwar radical peace movement. New York: Fordham University Press, 2003.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology