Studying
Peace
By Stephanie Mills
History, they say, is written by the winners, and since victory is all too often a military term, the slant of history is militaristic and nationalistic--fairly narrow when you think about it. Our country is now involved in a nebulous, open-ended, and extremely risky "war " against a stateless enemy--and for access to oil. In war, it is said, the first casualty is the truth. One piece of the truth that the wagers and so-called winners of war continually disown is the deep, enduring, spiritually and philosophically vibrant tradition of pacifism here in America and throughout history.
War has usually been a fairly tough sell. Learning the history of both the state propaganda and the sanctions required to persuade enough people to go to war; and of the reason, faith, and courage of peace activists can take a little digging. In the course of my own research on the life of Robert Swann, who was, among many other things, a noncompliant Conscientious Objector (C.O.) in WWII, I searched the shelves of the Osterlin Library at Northwest Michigan College and perused some books that informed, surprised, and heartened me in this dark time of escalating militarism and [mostly] armchair, video game patriotism.
Conscription of Conscience, by Mulford Q. Sibley and Philip Jacob, was written shortly after WWII, in part to assess the U.S.'s handling of conscientious objection during that war. It's an exhaustive, well- written history of the policy towards C.O.s of all stripes during that conflict. Conscription of Conscience was particularly interesting for its accounts of the various philosophies informing and motivating conscientious objections; the extent of conscientious objection during that war, and the activities of the C.O.s in the civilian public service camps. The whole governmental apparatus for a grudging accommodation of conscientious objection was vast and often, but not always hostile. The extent of the whole phenomenon was eye-opening.
An Energy Field More Intense Than War, by Michael True, is a rich and exciting read. Subtitled The Nonviolent Tradition and American Literature, the book recapitulates, for the contemporary reader, the long history of nonviolence in America as voiced by its most eloquent advocates from Thomas Paine to Thomas Merton. Energy Field highlights the politics, history, rhetoric and poetry of the ongoing strain of war resistance in our national life. It also sketches the federal and state governments' repression of and reprisals against objectors to state, or capitalist violence. This history is extensive and often shocking. In light of it, the stance of nonviolence becomes even more inspiring.
The Quiet Battle by Mulford Q. Sibley collects writings on the theory and practice of nonviolent resistance from "Ancient Religious Statements" to a fascinating account of the Norwegians' nonviolent resistance to the Nazi occupation of their country during the Second World War. It's a great collection of primary texts, arguments for, and accounts of nonviolent resistance. Introductory comments establish the various historical contexts and explain the differences within the overall commitment. Shelley, Thoreau, Gandhi, Richard Gregg, and Martin Luther King, Jr. are among the voices included.
Books like The Quiet Battle, An Energy Field More Intense Than War and The Conscription of Conscience--just a small, idiosyncratic sampling of the literature of peace and nonviolence--make good reading and help reclaim history from its domination by generals and rulers, chronicle the long brave struggle to see peace prevail on Earth.
Stephaine Mills is a local author. Her latest book, Epicurean Simplicity, just published, is available at Horizon Books in Traverse City.