Rethinking War And Peace

Contents Acknowledgements Introduction

ix 1

1 Where are we? Events and realities Presentation and perceptions

6 6 11

2 What is war good for? Myth and reality The myth of war War’s causes War leaders and their motivations ‘Exhausted alternatives’: the case of Kosovo War’s efficacy for good The negative effects of war Conclusion

18 18 22 29 32 38 45 50

3 War, violence and human nature Power as domination Violent structures Us and them Violence and human nature The role of culture Gender and violence Nature and nurture: changing gender roles Broader possibilities of cultural change Psychology and moral development

54 55 55 59 61 63 65 68 70 72

4 Peace, war and ethics Ethics, self and society Ethics and war Ethics and power The logic (and illogic) of war War as justice Just War theories The protection of civilians – sliding boundaries Means and ends: consequentialism

78 78 80 81 82 86 87 89 92

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Measuring wider consequences Sins of omission Accepting responsibility Strengthening peace ethics

93 96 98 100

5 Opposing evil and standing up for good What about Hitler? Tyranny and ‘people power’ Nonviolent resistance in recent history People power around the world The strength of nonviolence – building peace International solidarity A constructive role for governments in supporting peace ‘abroad’ An answer to terrorism? People power to resist militarism and demand peace

103 104 106 109 112 117 119

6 Peace, identity and participation From identity to identification Purposes and values Participation Achieving change

131 132 135 139 142

7 Time for action What needs to be done and why Getting on with the job Reasons for hope

150 151 155 160

Notes and References Index

166 173

122 127 128

Introduction The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as our culture has defined it. David Orr, Earth in Mind I was born in 1944 to conscientious objector parents who had held on to their beliefs in spite of the terrible events of World War II and in the face of much social opprobrium. At the age of about 15, beginning with what I had learned from my parents, I began to develop my own understanding of pacifism, to some extent through reading but more through endless conversations and by listening to speeches and sermons. I became active in the antinuclear movement and in the local branch of The International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR, of which I later became President) – an organisation which supports groups in different parts of the world that are resisting tyranny and militarism and working for justice through nonviolent action. The people I met in IFOR filled out my understanding of what it means to renounce violence without giving up on the struggle for humanity – indeed, as part of that struggle. For the past dozen years I have worked as a trainer and facilitator in the field of ‘conflict resolution’, in many different parts of the world afflicted by the violence of war (work that is described in my first book, People, Peace and Power1). Although this work is important to me, and seems both urgent and necessary, the events of 11 September and all that has followed have taken me back to the point where I began: to the conviction that unless we address the system of war and the injustice it perpetuates, I and people like me are doomed to spend the rest of our days in frantic and ineffectual firefighting, in which one blaze is replaced by another, or is quelled only to break out again with renewed ferocity. At the same time the hidden violence of economic exploitation and 1

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oppression, maintained by military might – whose effects are as dire as those of war – will not only continue but increase. We are, as a species, at a crossroads: a point where we must choose. We have probably never felt less secure, more uncertain. We seem to be caught on a ‘moving walkway’ that has run out of control and is propelling us along so fast that we can hardly think, let alone find a way of stopping the conveyor belt while we collect our wits and see what is to be done. It is my belief that we need to get off it somehow, and fast, before it hurls us all ‘together into the abyss’.2 The word ‘pacifist’ has an old-fashioned ring and is associated by most people with irrelevant idealism. Often, indeed, it is used as a derogatory term. While some regard pacifists as worthy souls, to be respected if not taken seriously, others see them as selfindulgent and dishonest, refusing to face the harsh realities of the world we inhabit. Because they resist war as a system, it is inferred that they are unconcerned with the real circumstances of particular wars. Yet if we refuse to reconsider the fundamental assumptions that underlie the justification and acceptance of war, we shall remain caught in a dynamic of cruelty and destruction that will know no end, that undermines all that makes for human happiness, decency and meaning and that could lead to our destruction as a species. Saying no to war, on the other hand, could be the first step in saying yes to a very different future. Why does it seem so impossible? Precisely because war is an integral part of a historic and pervasive system within which we are enmeshed, because we have always seen it as inevitable, and because recent events make it seem even more so. Since 11 September 2001, while rejecting the cruel violence of such terrible assaults, I have joined with others in the struggle to resist the relentless rhetoric and momentum of the ‘War on Terror’.3 In so doing I have come to see more clearly than ever that to protest in an ad hoc way against individual wars is not enough. The military machine is far too powerful and integral to global economic domination to be stopped by anti-war movements that fade once a particular war is over and struggle to get under way again as the next calamity looms and peak too late to prevent it. And, as things stand, it seems there are too many vested interests

Introduction

3

and too much inertia within the current system for particular wars to be stopped – even when a majority opposes them. Our ‘democracies’ have proved themselves unresponsive to their people. What is needed is a massive and sustained movement away from war as such, and towards constructive approaches to collective human relationships. This will entail a fundamental change in the way the world is organised and in prevailing approaches to power. This is indeed an ambitious project, but vital nonetheless. War must be seen for what it is: a human catastrophe, a violation of humanity. It ‘must cease to be an admissible human institution’.4 It must cease to be an admissible human institution because people matter. They matter more than wealth or power or convenience, and they matter unconditionally. As human beings we owe each other, without question, respect for the dignity and needs that are inherent in our humanity. Without this assumption no morality is possible, and morality is necessary to our wellbeing, as individuals and as a species. Since we exist in interdependence with all species and indeed all beings, we must learn to embrace them in our morality. It is our moral capacity, and our ability to care and suffer, to celebrate and create, that make us matter so much. Our ability to hurt and to harm is the other side of that capacity for good. The institution of war is an expression of our negative capacity and inflicts terrible harm on people and on the earth itself. Writing this book has been a struggle. My mind has felt atomised by the sheer senselessness of what has been said and done. Much of my time and energy have been consumed by the need to take action to resist the madness of it all. And the difficulty I have experienced in finding the mental space to stop, think and write, while at the same time coping with and responding to the immediate crisis, is my own small version of a much wider dilemma. How can we manage the realities of now, while working towards a different set of realities for the future? How can we take out the military props when we don’t seem to have a system that can stand up without them? How can we disentangle militarism from the terrible inequities it protects and promotes? These questions are at the heart of the challenge that I wish to address.

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I believe we have the capacity to choose against war and so to give peace a chance: that to want to do so is a sign of sanity rather than madness; that the first step is to understand that there is a choice, and that we can and should make it. My purpose, then, is to undertake a radical re-examination of the assumption that war is either acceptable or inevitable, and to try to suggest some ways out of the apparently endless cycle of violence. This will involve reflections on human nature, society and ethics, on alternatives to war and on the values and nature of peace. I am aware that my assumptions and perceptions will inevitably (despite all my travels and cross-cultural friendships) be those of someone who has grown up in the West. The content of my arguments and the examples I give will be influenced by my own context and experience, and by my preoccupation with what I see as the damaging and fundamentally immoral behaviour of the world’s most powerful nations. Indeed, I believe that we should all, wherever we live, focus first and foremost on what is done in our own society and in our name. But I also know that I am part of a growing counter-culture – one that has global dimensions – and that in much of what I say I will be voicing the opinions of a great many people in very different parts of the world. This book is for them too. As the book’s title suggests, I am attempting a fundamental review of the relationship between war and peace. Nonetheless, it is a response to the moment in which we live and the events of the past two or three years will receive a great deal of attention. It is those events that have brought me to the point of undertaking a task that I would not otherwise have imposed on myself. And it is those events that are likely to have prompted you to pick up this book. I see them as the apotheosis of militarism as a system and not an aberration. Events are moving fast and by the time this is published it will already be out of date – by the time you read it even more so. It will remain a book of and for our time, but with (I hope) something fundamental to say about human relationships and the future of our planet. Having spent my life being asked hard questions and trying to find answers to them, I am in no danger of assuming that to mount and sustain a fundamental challenge to war is an easy undertaking. In spite of the depth of my convictions, I have

Introduction

5

often doubted my ability to write cogently enough to be in any way convincing. I have feared that, however persuasive they are with me, my arguments would not hold up under the scrutiny of others. Worst of all, I have been afraid that I might myself come to find them unconvincing! Recently, however, I read Jonathan Glover’s brilliant book, Humanity:5 a compassionate and cogent exploration of human cruelty and destructiveness on the one hand, and moral resources on the other. While in more than four hundred pages there is no discussion of the ethical justification for war as such, the whole book points to that question. Having been afraid that my reasoning would prove too weak to stand up in the light of such a work, I found that in the event it was reinforced by it. In taking a position so far removed from accepted thinking on this subject, I shall be expected to provide answers to riddles never posed to those who justify war. Nonetheless, I choose to make the attempt. The way the last millennium ended and this one began has made such an endeavour feel like a human obligation. The title I have chosen is sweeping, reflecting the scale of the task. My hope is more modest: to contribute something, at least, to the wide and profound debate that needs to begin, urgently. I shall not be arguing that anything can remove the fact of human frailty, with all its associated dilemmas. I shall be maintaining that to uphold certain fundamental values, through personal and collective policy and structures, is of paramount importance for our wellbeing and our survival, and that war cannot be part of that. And I shall be echoing Glover’s hope that, given the belief and commitment of ‘ordinary people’, ‘the ending of the festival of cruelty may be possible’.6 War threatens our planet and all its inhabitants; peace will need to embrace them all and it is our responsibility.

Index Compiled by Peter Ellis Afghanistan, counter-insurgency in, 24 postwar, 16, 17, 20 reconstruction of, 49 war (2002), 10, 13, 19, 60, 86, 94 Agent Orange, 49 Al Aqsa brigade, 91 Al Jazeera, 15, 44 Al Qaeda, 10, 19, 20, 86 Algeria, 109 Allende, President, 161 Amin, Idi, 117 Amnesty International, 121 Amritsar, India, 109 ANC (African National Congress), 112 Angola, 24, 58 apartheid, 59, 112, 115 Argentina, 114, 161 arms industry see arms trade arms race, 40, 98, 105, 157 arms trade, 9, 21, 24, 51, 57, 64, 98, 157 Ashrawi, Dr Hanan, 124 atom bombs see weapons of mass destruction Aung San Suu Kyi, 32 Ba’ath Party, 14, 90 Bali, 46 Beijing, 111 Belgrano, 16 Bell, Bishop George, 78 Ben Bella, Ahmed, 109 Berlin, Isaiah, 96 Bevan, Aneurin, 131 bin Laden, Osama, 20, 50 Blair, Tony, 13, 16–17, 29, 30, 45, 50, 161 Bolivia, 114 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 35, 125 Boulding, Elise, 71 Brazil, 114–15, 161 Buddhism, 64 Bulgaria, 110 Burma, 32, 120

Burundi, 26, 96 Bush, George W., 13, 21, 29, 39, 57–8, 60, 161 campaigning, 1–2, 17, 100–2, 139–42, 144–8 capital punishment, 86–7 chaos theory, 101 Chechnya, 9, 49 children, and culture, 66, 134 and involvement, 158, 163 and violence, 9, 65 in wartime, 44, 63–4, 68, 84 Chile, 114, 161 China, 40, 51, 60–1, 111–12, 115 Christian Aid, 58 civil liberties, 44 see also human rights civilian-based defence see social defence Clark, Helen, 51 Clinton, Bill, 60 Cold War, 6, 23, 24, 40, 93 Colombia, 24, 91, 114 communications, 12, 83–4, 164 complexity theory, 101 conflict transformation, 158 Congo, 24, 25, 32, 96 consequentialism, 92–5, 98, 101 Costa Rica, 56, 123 counter-cultures, 4, 70, 71, 134 Cousins, Norman, 150 Croatia, 35 Cuba, 114 culture, 42, 63–72, 104, 152 Czechoslovakia, 110 Dayton Agreement, 33, 35 democracy, and human rights, 128 and militarism, 56, 58 nurturing, 44, 100, 139–42, 159 world, 152, 154

173

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depleted uranium, 49, 83 determinism, 61–2 Donne, John, 131, 139 dual effect theory, 90–1 East Germany, 110 East Timor, 32 economics, 57–9 Ecuador, 114 Einstein, Albert, 103 Eisenhower, Dwight, D., 50, 150 Eisler, Riane, 68–9, 71, 72, 73, 75 11th September 2001, and Afghanistan war, 86 reactions to, 19, 131 results of, 10, 11, 13 shock of, 1, 6, 46, 51 Estonia, 125 ethics, 78–85, 94, 100–2, 159, 164 see also consequentialism, Just War theories, justice, utilitarianism, values EU (European Union), 123 Fair Trade, 72, 152 Falklands war, 16, 30, 67 Falun Gong, 115 FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), 91, 114 Fénelon, Bishop Francois, 132 Ferguson, Brian, 25, 29, 71 Freud, Sigmund, 62–3 Galtung, Johan, 63 Gandhi, Mohandas, 109, 121, 136 gender, 65–70, 73, 84, 155, 158, 162 see also masculinity, sexual violence, women Geneva conventions, 87 Georgia, 111, 125 Germany, 41 Ghana, 24 Gilligan, Carol, 73 Glover, Jonathan, 5, 67, 72, 164 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 31, 110–12 Grass, Gunther, 15 Guantanamo Bay, 44 Guatamala, 114, 122 gun culture, 72, 95–6

Hague conventions, 87 Hague Tribunal, 43 Hamas, 91 Hiroshima, 40, 91 Hitler, 40, 82, 95, 104–6 Hoffman, Eva, 138 Holocaust, 40, 82, 104 Honeker, Erik, 110 Hong Kong, 115 Hughan, Jessie Wallace, 18 human rights, in Afghanistan, 20 and economic rights, 159 in India, 59 in Kosovo, 35, 36 and torture, 94 and war, 32, 43–4, 88–9 Humphrey, Nicholas, 131 Hungary, 110 Hussein, Saddam, 16, 45, 83, 87, 107, 121, 126 identity, 132–6, 142 India, 58, 59, 60–1, 109, 115 Indonesia, 24 International Criminal Court, 6, 43 International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR), 1 international law, 43, 51, 94 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 23 International Red Cross, 78 international solidarity, 119–22 Iran, 24 Iraq war (1991), 47, 49, 80 Iraq war (2003), consequences of, 94 cost of, 8, 49–50 and nonviolence, 105–6, 122 opposition to, 10–11, 160–1, 163 reasons for, 9, 18, 19, 20, 60, 86 reporting of, 14, 15–16 Islamic Jihad, 91 Israel, 90, 113, 117–18, 122, 124 Japan, 41 Jesus Christ, 64, 87 jihad, 20, 87 John Paul II, 78

Index

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Just War theories, 80, 87–9, 100 justice, 32, 86–7, 152

Muller, Dr Robert, 150 multilateralism, 100

Kant, Immanuel, 78, 79, 94 Karadzic, Radovan, 35 Keegan, John, 71 Kelly, Raymond, 71 Kenya, 115 King, Martin Luther, 116, 165 Koran, the, 87 Kosova Liberation Army (KLA), 36 Kosovo, 16, 17, 25, 32–9, 120

Nagasaki, 40, 91 nationalism, 133–4, 155 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), 33, 34, 37, 38, 39, 77 Nazism, 81, 106 see also Hitler Nepal, 115 NGO (non-governmental organisation), 120–1 Nicaragua, 114 Nietzsche, 81 Nigeria, 115 Nkrumah, President, 24 Non-Proliferation Treaty, 8, 127 nonviolence, examples of, 34–5, 105–11, 113– 18 fostering, 129–30, 151, 152, 153, 158 and terrorism, 127 see also pacifism, peace, people power Northern Ireland, 27, 120, 126 Norway, 124 nuclear weapons see weapons of mass destruction

landmines, 49 Lasar, Rita, 131, 135 Lester, Muriel, 150 Liberia, 120 Lorenz, Konrad, 62–3 LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), 10, 31, 124 Lula da Silva, Luiz Inacio, 100 Luthuli, Albert, 112 Lynch, Tim, 67 Mandela, Nelson, 112 Manila, 111 Mao Tse Tung, 40 Marcos, President, 111 masculinity, 42, 64, 65–8, 157, 158 Maslow, Abraham, 103 media, and culture, 64, 66 and Iraq war, 14, 15–16 and propaganda, 44, 45 and responsibility, 159 and spin, 83–4 and young people, 34 see also communications Merton, Thomas, 30 militarism, 3, 4, 8, 77, 98, 99 and ethics, 81, 94 and nonviolence, 104, 128–9 overturning, 152, 155, 157, 159 military industrial complex, 57, 162 Milosevic, Slobodan, 27, 33–5, 37, 116, 125–6, 136 Mindanao (Philippines), 9, 24 Mobutu, President, 25 Mohammed, 64 Mugabe, Robert, 115

oil, 6, 19–20, 21, 58 Orr, David, 1 OSCE (Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe), 36–7, 124–5 Oslo Peace Accord, 113 pacifism, 2, 96–7, 100 Palestine, 91, 113, 122, 123, 124 Pancevo (Serbia), 49 Patten, Chris, 32 peace, building, 18, 53, 104, 139–42, 142–9, 155–60 and ethics, 79, 100–2, 103 and governments, 122–7 and identity, 132 negative, 38, 39–40, 42, 43, 50 and nonviolence, 117

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peace, continued positive, 39–40, 41, 42, 50, 101, 118 values, 135–8 Peace Brigades International, 121–2 peace movement, 11, 144, 147, 156, 163 people power, 11, 105–6, 111, 112– 16, 128–30, 161–3 Peru, 91 Philippines, 9, 24, 111 power, benign, 71–2 and democracy, 101 economic, 56–7 and ethics, 81–2 military, 55–6 and nonviolence, 117 relations, 59–61 see also people power Prabhakaran, Velupillai, 31 Prague, 110 proportionality, 88, 92, 95 protest see people power psychology, 72–7, 164 racism, 59–60 Ramos, General, 111 rape see sexual violence Reagan, Ronald, 31 religion, 74–5, 137, 138 Robertson, George, 77 Robertson, Rob, 109 Robertson, Field Marshal Sir William, 18 Rotblat, Joseph, 78 Roy, Arundhati, 44, 58–9, 83, 150 Rugova, Ibrahim, 34, 36 Rwanda, 67, 96, 119 Ryan, George, 59 St Augustine, 87 St Paul, 64 Sassoon, Siegfried, 165 Saudi Arabia, 9, 21 Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), 91 September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, 160 Serbia, 16, 33, 35, 38, 44, 49, 116 sexual violence, 21, 47–8, 65–8 see also women

Shakespeare, William, 54 Sharon, Ariel, 113, 123 Sharpeville, 112 Sherman, General, 18 Shevardnadze, Eduard, 111 Sierra Leone, 23, 26, 96, 115, 119 social defence, 106 Solidarnosc, 110 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, 74 Somalia, 115 South Africa, 32, 59, 112, 115 sovereignty, 139 Soviet Union, 8, 23, 24, 86, 110, 118 Sri Lanka, 9–10, 31, 59, 115, 119, 124 Star Wars, 8 Straw, Jack, 41 Tajikistan, 125 Taliban, 19, 20 terrorism, causes of, 98, 127–8 effects of, 47, 51 intrastate, 28 responses to, 7, 20, 52, 86, 90–1 Thatcher, Margaret, 30, 31 Tiananmen Square, 111–12 Tolkien, J.R.R., 74 torture, 94–5, 164 transnational corporations, 57 Trocme, André and Magda, 106 Tudjman, Franjo, 27 Turkey, 21 Uganda, 26, 117 Ugresic, Dubravka, 27 Um Qasr, Iraq, 83 United Kingdom, and arms trade, 9 Global Prevention Fund, 123 laws, 95–6 and Northern Ireland, 27, 120 opposition, 163 soldiers, 12, 80, 85 and US bases, 6 and war, 8, 10, 40, 58 United Nations, 8, 21, 37, 43, 88, 94, 159, 161

Index United States, bases, 6, 25 Civil Rights Movement, 116, 136 and international law, 43, 44, 86, 128 and Kyoto agreement, 6 nuclear weapons, 8 oil, 19–20, 21 opposition, 10, 11, 160–1 world strategy, 6, 21, 23, 24, 51, 58, 60, 107, 161 Uruguay, 108, 114 Ustinov, Peter, 51 utilitarianism, 92, 95 values, 77, 135–8, 154 Vietnam, 40, 49, 76 violence, 55–9, 61–3, 98 Walker, Alice, 165 Walzer, Michael, 91 war, casualties of, 7, 14, 16, 32, 80, 89–90, 99 destructiveness of, 12, 22, 24, 33, 38, 40–1, 45–50, 52, 151 environmental costs, 48–9, 52, 55 and ethics, 5, 12, 38–45, 79–82, 119 financial costs, 49–50 and human nature, 61–3, 68–70 interstate, 22, 28–9 intrastate, 22, 23–27 motives for, 22–9, 31, 29–32 myths about, 11, 18–19, 21–45, 53, 151–2, 157 poets, 12, 165

177

and propaganda, 16, 19, 39, 42, 44–5 and society, 2, 4, 18, 82–5, 151 vocabulary, 13–17, 19, 64, 82–3, 91, 100, 155 see also arms trade, ethics, gender, masculinity, sexual violence ‘War on Terror’, 2, 10, 19, 41, 50, 86, 160 weapons of mass destruction, 7–8, 20, 21, 61, 86, 92, 93, 94, 127 Wilding, Jo, 121 women, in Afghanistan, 20 in Guatemala, 122 in Iraq, 42 and participation, 158 and religion, 75 in Sierra Leone, 115 in wartime, 84, 85 and violence, 9, 47–8, 65–70 Wordsworth, William, 54 World War I, 12, 29, 67, 104 World War II, comradeship in, 117 effects of, 40–1 and pacifism, 96 reality of, 12, 47 reasons for, 28, 104 Wren, Brian, 103 Yeltsin, Boris, 111 Yugoslavia, 24, 27, 33, 37, 96, 116 see also Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Serbia Zimbabwe, 115 Zinn, Howard, 103, 131