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| From 2GB.com http://tinyurl.com/mzfqzml |
This week marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the Gallipoli campaign during the First World War. There have been commemorations in Britain, France, Turkey, Australia and New Zealand. It was a brutal campaign with around a half million casualties including over 100,000 killed on all sides.
A few years ago I was a asked to review an important book on pacifism during the First World War. Prompted by the media attention this week I reread what I had written. Here's a snippet:
A few years ago I was a asked to review an important book on pacifism during the First World War. Prompted by the media attention this week I reread what I had written. Here's a snippet:
"I was introduced to the First World War as a young boy
sitting on my grandfather’s knee. He had been a non-commissioned officer in the
Second Battalion Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) and had fought at
Gallipoli. Such were his exploits and derring-do, that it was only some years
later that I discovered the Allies had been defeated in the Dardanelles!
Nonetheless, I developed a fascination with the war and as a teenager became
darkly enthralled by First World War poetry, with its unrelenting grimness and
tragedy. With hindsight, it was in part this literary encounter with young soldiers,
many of whom died later in the war, which led me toward pacifism.
In time, I read prose accounts of the war and the
disillusionment of young officers as they saw their comrades by the thousands
cruelly cut down as they “went over the top.” (See biographies, for example of
Siegfried Sassoon, writing as George Sherston, and Robert Graves). These young
aristocrats and gentlemen criticized freely generals and governments for their
collusion in mass slaughter." (Book review: To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918. Adam Hochschild.
New York: Mariner Books. The Journal for Peace and Justice Studies, Philadelphia: Villanova UniversitySpring 2012.)
I whole-heartedly recommend Hochschild's book.
I suppose that part of my fascination with the First World War was not just the sheer futility, waste and unremitting stupidity of it all, but the way that hundreds of thousands of young men obediently went to certain death. A whole generation of young boys in most European countries sacrificed their lives on the altar of national glory for the rulers of Europe—most of whom were related by marriage. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot said this week, "We wonder at their selflessness, at their capacity to face death." I have wondered too.
So it was the study of the First World War as a teenager that planted the seed of my eventual pacifism in my mid-twenties. When I became a pacifist it was because of the nonviolent sayings and practice of Jesus. Thirty years ago I was a pacifist because in the Bible Jesus was a pacifist, and that was a good enough reason for me. I could not imagine the Jesus I read about in the New Testament supporting war. I still cannot imagine Jesus supporting war and I remain a pacifist. However, my reasons for opposing war now are different. Jesus of Nazareth was one among a number of historical witnesses against violence. My nonviolentism now is at once more thoroughgoing and more nuanced—now not only an argument against war. My nonviolentism has become about reducing all violence. It is based on the moral problems innate to violent actions, and the intrinsic value of loving nonviolence for human and non-human thriving. But I digress ...
This week the nations of the world remember the Gallipoli Campaign. I remember too with awe and sadness. I am conflicted about war commemoration. On the one hand I think it important to remember "lest we forget." The First World War was, after all, "the war to end all wars." The remembrance is to the effect, "let's not let this happen again." On the other hand, war commemoration uses the rhetoric of the glory of dying in the national interest. Young boys—mostly, though now we have young girls dying too—are told it is a noble thing to die in the service of country. After the fact, war deaths are justified as glorious. It is, perhaps, the only way we can make emotional sense of the stupidity and brutality of it all. I have deep sympathy for the loss of so many young lives—but it is tragic and not glorious.
I have sympathy for the young soldier who dies, but I have no sympathy for those who sends him to die. It seems to me that those who suffer in wars are rarely the rulers, the leaders of nations, but rather those barely out of childhood, sold the lie of glory for national interest.
In the New Testament, St. John reports that Jesus said "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." This is in stark contrast to the history of warfare that suggests rather, "The sheep lay down their lives for the shepherd."
+Ab. Andy
I whole-heartedly recommend Hochschild's book.
I suppose that part of my fascination with the First World War was not just the sheer futility, waste and unremitting stupidity of it all, but the way that hundreds of thousands of young men obediently went to certain death. A whole generation of young boys in most European countries sacrificed their lives on the altar of national glory for the rulers of Europe—most of whom were related by marriage. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot said this week, "We wonder at their selflessness, at their capacity to face death." I have wondered too.
So it was the study of the First World War as a teenager that planted the seed of my eventual pacifism in my mid-twenties. When I became a pacifist it was because of the nonviolent sayings and practice of Jesus. Thirty years ago I was a pacifist because in the Bible Jesus was a pacifist, and that was a good enough reason for me. I could not imagine the Jesus I read about in the New Testament supporting war. I still cannot imagine Jesus supporting war and I remain a pacifist. However, my reasons for opposing war now are different. Jesus of Nazareth was one among a number of historical witnesses against violence. My nonviolentism now is at once more thoroughgoing and more nuanced—now not only an argument against war. My nonviolentism has become about reducing all violence. It is based on the moral problems innate to violent actions, and the intrinsic value of loving nonviolence for human and non-human thriving. But I digress ...
This week the nations of the world remember the Gallipoli Campaign. I remember too with awe and sadness. I am conflicted about war commemoration. On the one hand I think it important to remember "lest we forget." The First World War was, after all, "the war to end all wars." The remembrance is to the effect, "let's not let this happen again." On the other hand, war commemoration uses the rhetoric of the glory of dying in the national interest. Young boys—mostly, though now we have young girls dying too—are told it is a noble thing to die in the service of country. After the fact, war deaths are justified as glorious. It is, perhaps, the only way we can make emotional sense of the stupidity and brutality of it all. I have deep sympathy for the loss of so many young lives—but it is tragic and not glorious.
I have sympathy for the young soldier who dies, but I have no sympathy for those who sends him to die. It seems to me that those who suffer in wars are rarely the rulers, the leaders of nations, but rather those barely out of childhood, sold the lie of glory for national interest.
In the New Testament, St. John reports that Jesus said "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." This is in stark contrast to the history of warfare that suggests rather, "The sheep lay down their lives for the shepherd."
+Ab. Andy