With the exception of the robust campaign against nuclear testing in the 60s, peace movements of earlier decades were mainly small. The peace movement consisted of organizing signature campaigns and occasional demonstrations. The expanding peace movement concentrated on antimilitarism and antiwar goals because peace seekers found that they could do little to resolve issues such as the arms race and nuclear proliferation.
Let’s understand Pacifism and Peace Movements.
The Vietnam War’s Impact on Peace Movements
The war in Vietnam changed the course of the peace movement and witnessed the sprouting of peace movements across America.
The anti-war protests aimed at the reversal of the US war on Vietnam in the 60s and early 70s. The anti-war movement against Vietnam quickly spread to academic campuses. European and Australian peace seekers followed the Americans.
Reverend and Nobel Peace Prize winner (1965) Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke out against the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race.
He once wrote: “If we assume humankind has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war and destruction. In a day when sputniks dash through outer space and guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death through the stratosphere, nobody can win a war.
The choice today is no longer between violence and non-violence. It is between non-violence or non-existence.”
Diversification of Peace Movement Goals Post-Vietnam
The most significant development since the Vietnam War is that the peace movement has been more diverse in its goals.
Pacifists want to eliminate war completely, not merely prevent or regulate it. Internationalists believe that peace can be achieved through international institutions.
Support for war is acceptable in the name of national security, and collective self-defense is imperative to deter aggression.
Direct Action and Media Attention in Peace Movements
Peace organizations had adopted direct-action tactics of demonstrations and marches to focus the issues and to capture media attention.
On 12 June 1982, nearly a million people gathered in New York City to voice their protests against the nuclear arms race, and the protest initiated the Nuclear Freeze Campaign.
Longer-lasting demonstrations modeled on the long-running women’s campaign in Britain’s Greenham Common US missile base had taken place against nuclear weapons in America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. The protesters were opposing the berthing of American nuclear-powered and/or nuclear-armed vessels at the ports.
Recent Developments in Peace Movements
In recent years, peace movements look up to the UN’s approval for any force to be used against any state which is in breach of international peace and security.
On 15 February 2003, anti-war protesters marched through 60 countries to send a message to the US and British leaders not to attack Iraq without UN’s approval.
The Churches joined the Peace Movement in condemning war.
Peace movements can coordinate much better with sister organizations all over the globe in the days of advanced systems of information technology.
Novel Methods: Human Shields
A novel method was devised to prevent an attack by guarding installation with “human shields”. That means civilians act as a “shield” to protect the targets.
Many peace seekers from the West including the US went to Iraq to become “human shields” during the Second Gulf War in 2003 to prevent an attack from the US to defend Iraqi civilians and vital installations such as water treatment and power plants.
Peace activists in the occupied Palestinian lands often acted as “human shields” to protect Palestinian children from Israeli gunfire by walking them to school. One spokesman for peace activists said that: “the human shields were volunteering to play their role.”
Broader Agenda of Peace Movement
Since the 1980s, the peace movement has adopted new methods of dealing with the matter on a large scale. Information technology boosted their coordination globally.
Women, youths, students, trade unions, the green movement, left-leaning political party followers, and professionals joined peace movements.
Gradually, peace movements have broadened their agenda to include social justice and poverty alleviation because they consider that hunger, disease, unemployment, and homelessness create a situation that eventually disturbs peace and harmony in society.
Peaceseekers join global protesters to voice their concerns about the widening gap between rich and poor nations before any global summit or any meeting of the International Monetary Fund or World Bank, or World Trade Organization.
These summits and meetings are perceived as a vehicle in perpetuating an unfair global system in which poor nations have no voice and are trapped in poverty.
Peace Movement in Eastern Europe During the Cold War Era
The Soviet Union attempted to influence peace movement directions, largely through its World Peace Council. Many international anti-war conferences were supported by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union favorably disposed toward anti-missile demonstrations in Europe during the 80s.
In 1981-82, there emerged in Communist Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union a number of peace groups which attempted to be independent of the official Communist Party state-dominated official “peace committees”. The official “peace committees” echoed the party line in equating peace with the advance and eventual victory of Communism.
Thus, independent peace activists were perceived as a threat to the official peace committees. Within the Soviet Union, the Moscow Trust Group was formed as an independent peace group in May 1982. From 1982-84, some 2,000 Soviet citizens showed support for the Moscow Trust Group.
Peace Movements and Their Dominant Themes Within One Hundred Years
- 1890-1914: Alarm about modern armaments such as accurate breech-loading artillery, machine guns, and heavily armed naval vessels.
- 1916-1921: Opposition to World War I.
- 1920–1930: A variety of movements against World War I.
- 1930-39: Concern about a Second World War and anxiety about the risks of aerial bombardment on civilian populations.
- 1957-1963: Opposition to nuclear weapons, notably atmospheric nuclear testing with its resulting radioactive fallout.
- 1965-1972: Opposition to Vietnam War.
- 1980-1985: Opposition to nuclear weapons, military bellicosity, and the growing danger of nuclear war and support for a nuclear freeze.
- 1986-1990: Opposition to military involvement in Central America, concern regarding underground testing, deployment of “new generation” weapons, and the militarization of space.
- 1991-2003: Concerns on the proliferation of small arms, greater emphasis on human rights and support for humanitarian intervention, the enhanced role of UN and multi-lateral organizations, opposition to the unilateralist policy of the US, and against the Second Gulf War on Iraq in 2003, as well as concern on the erosion of civil liberties in the name of combating terrorism.
Movement Impact and Its Future
Peace movements have an impact on political culture, politics, and policy. Political scientists use the concept of political culture to refer to a citizen’s attitude and values that guide his/her political behavior, such as commitment to justice and democracy and the extent of political activity.
Peace movements have been able to break down domestic nuclear defense consensus, stimulate increased fear of nuclear war, evolve a new security policy, and develop effective social movements for social justice.
Peace Movements created enormous pressure on the Reagan administration in the 80s to seek peace efforts with the Soviet Union.
The politics of the street added a new dimension to the politics of negotiations towards a peaceful world. Furthermore, they resulted in policy outcomes as follows:
- Arms control and disarmament.
- End of the Cold War.
- Alternative defense proposals.
It remains to be seen whether, in the 21st century, peace movements can play a similar role in the post-September 11 world.
Terrorism and weapons of mass destruction have given birth to a unilateralist policy of the US where “hard power” appears to be the order of international society. In that climate, it is doubtful how effective peace movements will be in the years ahead.
Critics View of Peace Movement
Critics say that peace movements may have actually prolonged or encouraged wars. Hitler might have been emboldened by peace movements in England (Oxford Union Peace Pledge that they would not fight for the English King) and that his aggressive designs might not be resisted.
Another question is how peace activists should denounce their governments during the war publicly. Enemies might be encouraged to prolong the war because they could perceive that people of countries that had been attacked were divided and would, therefore, lack the morale to fight and win wars.
In 2003, many critics of peace movements questioned whether the logical consequences of their position against the US on Iraq had been sufficiently thought through.
They had suspicions that the give-peace-a-chance thinking would not have addressed the crucial question of allowing UN inspectors in Iraq in November 2002 after a lapse of four years. They argued that the threat of force by the Anglo-American alliance prompted Iraq to re-admit the UN inspectors.
Furthermore, anti-war protests would provide comfort to the Iraqi regime that the world was divided to disarm Iraq.
Prime Minister of Australia John Howard held the view with regard to anti-war protests that “we are all accountable for the actions we take and the people who demonstrate and who give comfort to Saddam Hussein must understand that…. The more the West is divided, the more we reduce the prospects of a peaceful outcome.”
US Defense Secretary warned that if Iraqis allowed Westerners to be used as “human shields,” it would be a violation of international law.
Anti-Nuclear Peace Movement
Peace movements re-surged in the 50s and 60s largely due to growing popular anxiety about nuclear weapons. Anti-nuclear activism has its roots in local communities of their abiding respect for human life. Religious leaders played an active part in the anti-nuclear movement. Many atomic scientists who feared global annihilation due to nuclear war joined peace movements.
The Friends of the Earth began in San Francisco in 1969 as an anti-nuclear protest movement and now has branches in over 20 countries. Greenpeace had its origins in Canada in 1970 when a group of protesters chartered a boat and sailed right into the target area of a nuclear testing site in the Aleutian Islands. Eventually, the nuclear testing
stopped. Greenpeace had been active in opposing French nuclear testing in Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean.
The People for Nuclear Disarmament was one organization that was associated closely with the revival of the peace movement in the early 80s. In 1983, they changed to its present name from the Association for International Cooperation and Disarmament. It received good support from trade unions. It is an umbrella organization that has spread over 30 affiliates among environmental, church, professional, and special interest groups in the community.