Anti-war
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The term anti-war usually refers to the opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict. The term can also refers to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many activists distinguish between anti-war movements and peace movements. Anti-war activists work through protest and other grassroots means to attempt to pressure a government (or governments) to put and end to a particular war or conflict.
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[edit] Usage
Many groups call themselves anti-war activists though their opinions may be different: some anti-war activists may be equally opposed to both sides' military campaign; in contrast, many modern activists are against only one side's (usually the most powerful) campaigns.
Pacifist and anti-war movements are similar, but not the same. Pacifism is the belief that violent conflict is never acceptable and that society should not be ready to fight in a conflict (see disarmament); the anti-war movement is not necessarily opposed to national defense. Pacifists oppose all war, but anti-war activists may be opposed to only a particular war or wars.
The historic peace churches, the Brethren, the Mennonites and the Quakers teach that Jesus advocates nonviolence, and that his followers must do likewise.
[edit] History of modern movements
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[edit] American Civil War
- Further information: Opposition to the American Civil War
A key event in the early history of the modern anti-war stance in literature and society was the American Civil War, where it culminated in the candidacy of George McClellan for President of the United States as a "Peace Democrat" against incumbent President Abraham Lincoln. The outlines of the anti-war stance are seen: the argument that the costs of maintaining the present conflict are not worth the gains which can be made, the appeal to end the horrors of war, and the argument that war is being waged for the profit of particular interests. During the war, the New York Draft Riots were started as violent protests against Abraham Lincoln's Enrollment Act of Conscription plan to draft men to fight in the war. After the war, The Red Badge of Courage described the chaos and sense of death which resulted from the changing style of combat: away from the set engagement, and towards two armies engaging in continuous battle over a wide area.
[edit] World War I
With the increasing mechanization of war, opposition to its horrors grew, particularly in the wake of the First World War. The European avant-garde cultural movements such as Dada which were explicitly anti-war.
On June 16, 1918, Eugene V. Debs made an anti-war speech and was arrested under the Espionage Act of 1917. He was convicted, sentenced to serve ten years in prison, but President Warren G. Harding commuted his sentence on December 25, 1921.
[edit] Between the World Wars
It was in the 1930s that the Western anti-war movement took shape, to which the political and organizational roots of most of the existing movement can be traced. Characteristics of the anti-war movement included opposition to the corporate interests perceived as benefiting from war, to the status quo which was trading the lives of the young for the comforts of those who are older, the concept that those who were drafted were from poor families and would be fighting a war in place of privileged individuals who were able to avoid the draft and military service, and to the lack of input in decision making that those who would die in the conflict would have in deciding to engage in it.
Many war veterans, including US General Smedley Butler, spoke out against wars and war profiteering on their return to civilian life.
Veterans were still extremely cynical about the motivations for entering WWI, but many were willing to fight later in the Spanish Civil War, indicating that pacifism was not always the motivation. These trends were depicted in novels such as All Quiet on the Western Front, For Whom the Bell Tolls and Johnny Got His Gun.
[edit] World War II
- Further information: Opposition to World War II
Opposition to World War II was most vocal during its early period, and stronger still before it started while appeasement and isolationism were considered viable diplomatic options. Communist-led organizations, including veterans of the Spanish Civil War[1], opposed the war during the period of the Hitler-Stalin pact but then turned into hawks after Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
The war seemed, for a time, to set anti-war movements at a distinct social disadvantage; very few, mostly ardent pacifists, continued to argue against the war and its results at the time. However, the Cold War followed with the post-war realignment, and the opposition resumed. The grim realities of modern combat, and the nature of mechanized society insured that the anti-war viewpoint found presentation in Catch-22, Slaughterhouse-Five and The Tin Drum. This sentiment grew in strength as the Cold War seemed to present the situation of an unending series of conflicts, which were fought at terrible cost to the younger generations.
[edit] Vietnam War
- Further information: Opposition to the Vietnam War
Opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War began slowly and in small numbers in 1964 on various college campuses in the United States. Countercultural works such as the notorious MacBird by Barbara Garson encouraged a spirit of nonconformism and anti-establishmentarianism. This anti-war sentiment developed during a time of unprecedented student activism reinforced in numbers by the demographically significant baby boomers, but grew to include a wide and varied cross-section of Americans from all walks of life. Many veterans of Vietnam, including U.S. Senator John Kerry, and disabled veteran Ron Kovic spoke out against the Vietnam conflict on their return to civilian life.
[edit] South African Border War
main article:South African resistance to war
Opposition to South Africa's border war spread to a general resistance to the apartheid military. Organisations such as the End Conscription Campaign and Committee on South African War Resisters, were set up.
[edit] 2001 Afghanistan War
- Further information: Opposition to the 2001 Afghanistan War
There was consiserable opposition to the 2001 Afghanistan War in the United States and the United Kingdom. Opposition was organised locally by the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan[2] and internationally in the form of protests by various anti-war organisations who went on to organise much larger protests against the 2003 Iraq War.[3][4]
[edit] Iraq War
- Further information: Opposition to the Iraq War
The anti-war position gained renewed support and attention in the build up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the U.S. and its allies. Millions of people staged mass protests across the world in the immediate prelude to the invasion, and demonstrations and other forms of anti-war activism have continued throughout the occupation. The primary opposition within the U.S. to the continued occupation of Iraq has come from the grassroots. Opposition to the conflict, how it had been fought, and complications during the aftermath period divided public sentiment in the U.S., resulting in majority public opinion turning against the war for the first time in the spring of 2004, a turn which has held since.[5] Anti-war groups are currently planning the 2008 Republican National Convention Protest, to be held in St. Paul, Minnesota on September 1 - September 4, 2008.
[edit] Possible War against Iran
- Further information: Opposition to war against Iran
Organised opposition to a possible future military attack against Iran by the United States is known to have started during 2005-2006. Beginning in early 2005, journalists, activists and academics such as Seymour Hersh[6][7], Scott Ritter[8], Joseph Cirincione[9] and Jorge E. Hirsch[10] began publishing claims that United States' concerns over the alleged threat posed by the possibility that Iran may have a nuclear weapons program might lead the US government to take military action against that country in the future. These reports, and the concurrent escalation of tensions between Iran and some Western governments, prompted the formation of grassroots organisations, including Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran in the US and the United Kingdom, to advocate against potential military strikes on Iran. Additionally, several individuals, grassroots organisations and international governmental organisations, including the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei[11], a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, Scott Ritter[8], Nobel Prize winners including Shirin Ebadi, Mairead Corrigan-Maguire and Betty Williams, Harold Pinter and Jody Williams[12], Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament[12], Code Pink[13], the Non-Aligned Movement[14] of 118 states, and the Arab League[15], have publicly stated their opposition to a would-be attack on Iran.
[edit] Arts and culture
English poet Robert Southey's 1796 poem After Blenheim is an early modern example of anti-war literature — it was written generations after the Battle of Blenheim, but at a time when England was again at war with France. Alfred Tennyson's 1854 poem The Charge of the Light Brigade focussed on leadership failures and unnecessary loss of life in the Crimean War, while American author Stephen Crane's 1895 novel Red Badge of Courage, set during the American Civil War, cast war in a negative, anti-heroic light. World War I spawned the English war poets, such as Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, and Siegfried Sassoon, as well as German novelist Erich Maria Remarque, all of whom (like Crane) used graphic realism to make a contrast with heroic notions of war.
Pablo Picasso's 1937 painting Guernica, on the other hand, used abstraction rather than realism to generate an emotional response to the loss of life from the fascist bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. American author Kurt Vonnegut used science fiction themes in his 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five, depicting the bombing of Dresden in World War II (which Vonnegut witnessed). The second half of the 20th century also witnessed a strong anti-war presence in other art forms, including anti-war music such as Eve of Destruction and One Tin Soldier and films such as M*A*S*H, opposing the Cold War in general, or specific conflicts such as the Vietnam War. The current American war in Iraq has also generated significant artistic anti-war works, including film maker Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, which holds the box-office record for documentary films, and Canadian musician Neil Young's 2006 album Living with War.
[edit] References
- ^ Volunteer for Liberty, newsletter of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, February 1941, Volume III, No. 2
- ^ Taliban should be overthrown by the uprising of Afghan nation. Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (October 11, 2001). Retrieved on 2006-11-11.
- ^ Vidal, John. "Another coalition stands up to be counted", The Guardian, November 19, 2001. Retrieved on 2006-11-11.
- ^ "Protesters demand end to bombing", BBC, 10 November 2001. Retrieved on 2006-11-11.
- ^ Iraq
- ^ Seymour M. Hersh (January 24, 2005). Annals of National Security: The Coming Wars. The New Yorker.
- ^ The Iran plans, Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker Mag., April 8, 2006
- ^ a b Sleepwalking To Disaster In Iran, April 1, 2005, Scott Ritter
- ^ Fool Me Twice, March 27, 2006, Joseph Cirincione, Foreign Policy
- ^ Hirsch, Jorge (November 1, 2005). The Real Reason for Nuking Iran: Why a nuclear attack is on the neocon agenda. antiwar.com.
- ^ Heinrich, Mark; Karin Strohecker (June 14, 2007). IAEA urges Iran compromise to avert conflict. Reuters. Retrieved on 2007-06-21.
- ^ a b For a Middle East free of all Weapons of Mass Destruction. Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (2007-08-06). Retrieved on 2007-11-03.
- ^ Knowlton, Brian. "Kouchner, French foreign minister, draws antiwar protesters in Washington", International Herald Tribune, September 21, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
- ^ Non-Aligned Movement (May 30, 2006). NAM Coordinating Bureau's statement on Iran's nuclear issue. globalsecurity.org. Retrieved on 2006-10-23.
- ^ Arab states against military action on Iran. iranmania.com (June 18, 2007). Retrieved on 2007-06-21.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- AntiWar.Com, columns and news links from an anti-war perspective
- "Troubled Times" Photos, documents and text include analysis of major 1969 West Berlin demonstration.
- Guide to Anti-war websites The Guardian
