I must read the book - Kurlansky is an interesting writer. I wonder if he mentions Costa Rica, which abolished its army in 1948 and since then has been an oasis of calm in central America (They also limit all politicains to a single 4 year term - sounds like heaven!) The military budget is now spent on culture and education and internal security (ie the police). Heaven again!

I came across the book yesterday in Readings Carlton.
I sat down and read much of it.
It was/is superb.I was also impressed by the statements at the end of the book re the causes and dynamics of violence.
This essay

1. www.dabase.net/openlett.htm

affirms Kurlansky's carefully argued thesis. It gives a very sobering description of the state of the world.
It was written in response to the Kosovo crisis (when WW3 nearly started) and reworked in response to the atrocity in New York.
Its message/calling is quite stark: Choose peace or you WILL inevitably destroy yourselves (all of you) and possibly render the planet uninhabitable!

Candide, I wonder if he also mentions the Solomon Islands, which has no standing army, but has had serious internal conflict for a decade. Does that sound like heaven too?

Simplistic solutions are dangerous.

I find the article an overly simplistic pacifist dialogue lacking any real justification.

Firstly, avoiding war at all costs is not a strategy. Chamberlain proved this with his policy of appeasement in the 1930's. More recently, the world has stood by and watched genocides in Somalia, Rwanda, Sudan and Zimbabwe (which combined exceed the death toll of the Holocaust) unfold as international law professor's debate whether state intervention is 'legitimate'. When America did intervene in Somalia, the UN stood watching with 'I told you so' on the end of its tongue as brave Americans were dragged through the streets.

No doubt somebody will pipe up with the popular catchcry 'they were only there for the oil' (or whatever). But is being there only for 'the oil' really worse than not being there at all because one is clinging to ideals that just don't stack up? The UN said Rwanda wouldnt be allowed to happen again-since then its happened again at least twice and we all pledge a $1 to the cause and feel a little better about ourselves.

It would be nice if one day the concept of what's right and wrong wasn't muddied by useless dialogue. The world needs a little humanity reinforced by intestinal fortitude.

Peaceniks!
Peace on the lot of you - dreamers blind to reality.
To quote from cartoonist Emile Mercer from half a century back, addressing the "make love, not war" brigade: he had his "Gravy Man" jumping up and down while waving his walking stick, berating them - "it's you lot who are the cause of it. Making love makes babies. Too many babies makes war" - or similar words.
There is no hope for peace breaking out until Homo sapiens stabilises - both in numbers and in economics.
If we can't stop the increase in people, both those in need and those having indulgent lifestyles, then wars are inevitable.
if we are unable to get off the bandwagon of economic growth, accompanied as it essentially is by growing energy and resource use, then the friction from it will spark wars. Everlasting.
A few thousand years back, the Greek play Lysistrata aired concerns about war. Yet it continues to be our ugly companion. Possibly the only thing not tried for achieving peace is stabilisation. Maybe it is time to give it a go; worth attempting to find out how to give it a go.

Yes in the 60's we used to make love not war, sadly there was no profit for the weapons industry in that approach. It is much easier today, just pick a group who can't defend themselves, illegally invade on a notion of weapons of mass destruction, and away we go the weapons industry is back in business, employing people, making a profit. Who really owns the weapons industry I wonder...ummmm

Now the West started the Industrial Revolution which has allowed our populations to expand expodentially.We have more people than this planet can support.The Middle East owns 65% of the world's oil.The US are in there making sure that Muslum countries remain divided so they cannot form cartels than can fix prices.Not only the US benefits,but the population of the entire,planet which needs oil for their survival.

Poor countries have to be told to limit their populations or lose aid.If global warming continues to accelerate,then total anarchy will bring about the death of billions.

To succeed,Peace must become a worldwide movement.
It should be embraced by every Individual and thrust upon every Government.
It should be a compulsory subject in school curriculum
It should be accompanied by the simultaneous surrender and destruction of all weapons of war.
The 'I have a dream' address of Martin Luther King is as relevent today as it was in 1968.
Subsequent to the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre, John Howard saw fit to implement a 'buy back' of guns from the Australian population but that was as far as he went; probably as far as could be expected unless other countries followed suit.
Universal disarmament and the cessation of the manufacture of arms worldwide is a prerequisite for such an initiative.
It will not happen unless a worldwide movement follows such a path.
One thing is certain, humankind can not continue down the road of unending warfare. This article and the links to other work makes a lot of sense despite the ridicule of those who are not prepared to embrace the dream.

Arjay,
So the creative, sensible thing to do is reduce our reliance on oil, by developing clean green renewable alternatives to oil, correct. If the yanks put a man on the moon 38 years ago, it shouldn't be too difficult with some R&D to develop solar cars, hydro electricity, and wind generators, among many other alternatives, all that is needed is and has been the political will.

Crunch time is almost upon us, had Australia invested as much money into developing some of these alternatives, instead of developing the situation of murdering 100's of thousands of innocent women and children civilians in Iraq, we may be half way to solving our problems.

What a strange set of priorities we [U.S.A./Australia] have, preferring to murder people instead of creating a better world. Conservatism is a terrible drag on crateivity we need a progressive government to replace our regressive one.

Shonga- I refer you to my previous post and ask this question: If a large reserve of oil was found under Darfur or Harare and the United States suddenly decided to intervene in the humanitarian tradgedies unfolding in those areas, would it be worse to do so because of oil, or to not intervene at all?
The problem for all the idealists now is that after its withdrawl from Iraq, I think the US will adopt a semi-isolationist policy and show an even greater reluctance to intervene (even for oil). Then the world will be left with the systemically corrupt and ineffectual UN to prevent genocides and barbaric dictatorships. No hope really!

Interesting quote from Churchill on Ghandi. Let’s perhaps dispel a few of the myths held by the avowedly non-violent of one of their ‘greatest saints’. Peace is a wonderful thing and should be treasured – something seemingly unattainable, but lets ‘prick’ this little Ghandi myth anyway and get a glimpse of the historical Ghandi.

Those who saw the film ‘Gandhi’ had the pleasure of reinforcing the myth. The film revolved around three axes: (1) Anti-racism - all men are equal regardless of race, color, creed, etc.; (2) anti-colonialism, which in present terms translates as support for the Third World, including, most eminently, India; (3) nonviolence, presented as an absolutist pacifism. There are other, secondary precepts and subheadings. Gandhi is portrayed as the quintessence of tolerance ("I am a Hindu and a Muslim and a Christian and a Jew"), of basic friendliness to Britain ("The British have been with us for a long time and when they leave we want them to leave as friends") The film ‘Gandhi’ basically amounted to a paid political advertisement for the government of India.

This sanitized film would hardly show scenes of Gandhi's pretty teenage girl followers fighting "hysterically" (the word was used) for the honor of sleeping naked with the Mahatma and cuddling the nude septuagenarian in their arms. (Gandhi was "testing" his vow of chastity in order to gain moral strength for his mighty struggle with Jinnah.) When toldt here was a man named Freud who said that, despite his declared intention, Gandhi might actually be ‘enjoying’ the caresses of the naked girls, Gandhi continued, unperturbed. Nor would we see Gandhi giving daily enemas to all the young girls in his ashrams (his daily greeting was, "Have you
had a good bowel movement this morning, sisters?").

Despising consistency and never checking his earlier statements, and yet inhumanly obstinate about his position at any given moment, Gandhi is thought by some Indians today (according to V.S.Naipaul) to have been so erratic and unpredictable that he may have delayed Indian independence for twenty-five years.
Cont’d..

Cont’d..
The Gandhi of 1893, a conventional caste Hindu, fresh from caste-ridden India where a Paraiyan could pollute at 64 feet, as the champion of interracial equalitarianism is one of the most brazen hypocrisies one could believe. Gandhi (Sergeant Major Gandhi) was awarded Victoria's coveted War Medal. Throughout most of his life Gandhi had the most inordinate admiration for British soldiers, their sense of duty, their discipline and stoicism in defeat (a trait he emulated himself).

The admirers of 'Gandhi' would naturally suppose that, since the future Great Soul opposed South African discrimination against Indians, he would also oppose South African discrimination against black people. But this is not so. When he was fighting on behalf of Indians, he was not fighting for all the Indians, but only for his rich merchant class upper caste Hindus, he had no concern for blacks whatever. In fact, during one of the "Kaffir Wars" he volunteered to organize a brigade of Indians to put down a Zulu rising, and was decorated himself for valour under fire. In the Indian Opinion of September 24, 1903, Gandhi said: "We believe as much in the purity of races as we think they (the Whites) do... by advocating the purity of all races."

During his entire South African period, and for some time after, until he was about fifty, he supported the empire ardently in no fewer than three wars: the Boer War, the "Kaffir War," and, with the most extreme zeal, World War I. If Gandhi's mind were of the modern European sort, this would seam to suggest that his later attitude toward Britain was the product of unrequited love: he had wanted to be an Englishman; Britain had rejected him and his people; very well then, they would have their own country. Gandhi, in short, was a leader looking for a cause. He found it, of course, in home rule for India and, ultimately, in independence.

Perhaps it is better, after all, to cherish the myth – as propagated further with a rather inanely constructed article and presumably, book.

wre,
Does Zimbabwe have oil reserves, they have a dictator every bit as evil as Saddam was, but no U.S.A. intervention, I wonder why that would be, no economic gain for the U.S.A. perhaps. I wish someone could get the message to Bush that when he makes statement about "the American people" he is assuming that Mexico, Canada and a whole host of smaller countries in North America don't exist, and neither does South America, what an arrogant approach to take, the U.S.A. is only a country in North America, not the whole of America.

I would have loved to have attended school in the U.S.A. if someone who can't string a sentenence together can reach the Presidency I could have become anything.

Relda:
You exhibited your knowledge of the contradictions and eccentricities of Ghandi.(half his luck ) on the spray he got from a Nobel Laureate V.S, Naipaul who made a career of criticising other writers from Dickens,Jane Austen and Hemingway and whose major beef in life was that his writing was not given due accolade in Britain. There was a vast chasm between Ghandi and Naipaul ; Ghandi succeeded in inspiring a Nation: He was a doer who achieved a worthwhile goal...and paid with his life as did other prominent world leaders, Martin Luther King ,Steve Biko, JFK and his Brother Robert; Naipaul wrote novels, got a Nobel Prize and a Knighthood.
Ghandi was only mentioned in the latter half of your post yet you dismissed the whole article as Inane despite some compelling argument supporting the ideal of living dangerously advocating peace from some pretty heavy supporters. You uttered an offhand concession to the idea of non-violence and peace Do you propose we continue to support escalation of wars of conquest ? or do you have an alternative proposal ?

maracas,
They have no alternate proposals conservatives know only one way, if they want/need anything, simple just blow some heads off and take it at any price to their country. Normal people negotiate and come to agreements and have respect for human life, this lot operate on greed and selfishness, for them money is their God.

Maracas,
Maybe the old question, Could Hitler have been stopped by a massive sit-in with group of protestors singing, “Give Peace a Chance”? has run dry – despite there being insufficient martyrs to cater for a million plus Nazi bullets.

In a Christian context, the assertions of the pacifist and the realist is that all use of force is evil and that the teachings of Christ forbid violence" The pacifist, therefore, shuns all military involvement, while the realist sanctions war only as a "lesser of two evils." War opponents categorically refuse to permit killers to mold them in their own image. Pacifists alone uphold the motivating premise of absolutism, that the killing of human beings is morally forbidden.

If the morally high-minded ‘imposition’ of peace, however, becomes an attempt to impose our scale of 'higher' values upon others it leads to Utopianism and Romanticism. Our self-righteous attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell. It leads to the very intolerance we, ironically, hoped to absolve – Bush’s Iraq may be a case in point. Socialism has proven to be a disaster both in Russia and the third World. It becomes literal proof that “the road to hell is in fact paved with good intentions”. However, I believe The Dalai Lama breaks all political and social barriers cogently with, “To experience genuine compassion is to develop a feeling of closeness to others combined with a sense of responsibility for their welfare. This develops when we accept that other people are just like ourselves in wanting happiness and not wanting suffering.”

SHONGA,
Conservatism can perhaps be a little ambiguous – it probably has been a movement infiltrated by religious fundamentalists, paranoid patriotic groups, and big-business leaders, all united in their loathing for the intellectual elites.

If you perhaps see activism as the default mode of politics, you shouldn't be surprised when it leads to anti-intellectualism, tolerance of extremists, retreat into fantasy, and a self-defeating kind of partisanship designed to make people feel better about themselves rather than produce meaningful change.

Relda
I hope you don't believe that your exercise in semantic obfuscation in any way categorises you as anything but an intellectually bankrupt egocentric. Get a life.

Advocating peace to Genghis Khan ? :) Actually, it would have worked.. but the way the Persians expressed their feeling about him was to send his ambassadors head back in a package. Termed "The package which changed the world". All Khan wanted to do was engage in trade peacefully. The 'head' changed his mind and a million corpses later... there was peace.

The Non Violence of Luther King, was withIN an already established national peace. Same with Ghandi.

The problem with advocating 'peace' is that it just doesn't work.
You can 'advocate' till the cows come home but if some megalomaniac wants your arse.. he is going to have it, peace or no peace advocasy.

"Advocating Peace" is just shallow, misguided and stupid. EVERYONE wants peace you dimwits. The problem is..."Who's" peace.. What "kind" of Peace.

If you peaceniks don't tweak to the obvious ramifications of my above statements, then I'm not going to try to educate you because the job is probably too big.

'Peace' all :)

maracus,
We sound a little touchy...perhaps a little blustery - hard to say, but I guess you're not smiling:)

Nice post Boazy.

relda/David
Thou shalt not kill, love thy neighbour, conservatism is conservatism.

SHONGA,
"Thou shalt not kill" and "Love thy neighbour etc.” are bound together with eight other commands by the same ‘authority’. I’d presume you give them ALL equal preference – or, do you pick and choose?... I’d suggest you would be rather conservative.

I've read all the comments about the article, but what I want to say is about the book itself. It gave me a lot to think about. That's what I like: to have something to discuss with others. I don't think we have to come to hard and fast conclusions about being a peace activist or not. We just need to talk things over, perhaps changing our minds every time we talk to someone else. Kurlansky's point might simply be that while we're talking to each other we don't have much of an inclination to go to war. Is that too simplistic for some?

The way I see it, To pretend war is never necessary is bad.
To concede it is inevitable is worse.

Boaz: I hear your points about warfare, and cede they have merit.
At the same time, I can't help but feel they sound much more militant than the 'turn the other cheek' rhetoric of Jesus Christ.

If we don't attempt to stop violence, then we are desensitising ourselves to it.
Whenever we say - oh well, war happens, then we make it legitimate.

The real question here, is at what stage do you decide to go to war. What makes a war justified?

Discounting the economic rationales, the political reasons for this war have been dubious.
If this war was waged on the humanitarian grounds that are now being spruiked, then Darfur would have been a much more logical choice, and it wouldn't have the associated risk of alienating the muslim world.

But it wasn't chosen. Iraq was. I can only conclude that this humanitarian reason has been fabricated to suit other purposes - the economic ones.

Economic reasons are not moral; by their very nature they are about self interest - not even self defence. Last I checked, jesus wasn't keen on that.

Boaz: you are justified in portraying the peace at all costs advocates as being unrealistic, however your statement: "Advocating Peace" is just shallow, misguided and stupid" is wrong.

Not everybody want peace. Many people want money and are willing to fight for it.

To not speak out against these activities... somehow I don't think jesus would've been cool with that.

Tell me David... Do you really think jesus would have been okay with the Iraq war?

It's difficult to see how this article can be turned on its head as it has here. There isn't much to argue about when someone says we should all be nice to one another. TurnRight you seem to have a better handle on this than most.

If "Advocating Peace" is just shallow, misguided and stupid, I'm totally at a loss to understand what it takes to be clever. DB you seem to know the bible better than most. Why not read to us some of the good bits?

...Come to think of it bennie, on the subject of ‘being nice to each other’, one of the most acknowledged books on this theme suggests there’s a lot more to it than just being ‘nice’. Here's a 'good' bit. Not only should we be ‘nice’ but also we should suffer abuse, some degradation and a fair dose of humiliation. And if that isn’t enough, we should actually love our abusers – finally, if they take us to court on trumped up charges we should allow them to take us to court and submit to its ruling, even if unjust…but that’s entirely another issue.

However, the focus of the article is on the ‘doctrine’ of pacifism – a little different to just being nice. Let’s say for argument I reject, totally, the moral precept “Thou shalt not kill.” – for my own good reasons, naturally. My intent is to attack and kill you – and presumably I have the means. Would you prefer the law and society to defend you of my intent, with all means at their disposal? Or, in I successfully executing your murder, I merely be tried and found guilty (perhaps by reason of insanity) of a crime (perhaps murder) and locked away for a period? Remember too, the morality behind to principle not to kill is bound also to a strong Judaic-Western tradition where the sanctity of life and its preservation is important – a tradition which punished as it defended.

relda,
I take all 10 commandments very seriously, and I am NOT conservative.

Relda,

My take on the article can be summed up in some pithy little saying along the lines of “for evil men to succeed it takes good men to do nothing”. The thing is, evil isn’t restricted to the bad guys, but you wouldn’t read about it. ‘Eternal vigilance’ sounds passé but consider what happens in its absence.

If a court subjects you to an unjust ruling, is pacifism or the law at fault? If you’re not capable of withstanding sticks & stones, “abuse, some degradation and a fair dose of humiliation”, how are you going to get through life? Perhaps you’re thinking of those living under oppressive regimes, in which case there’s a lot else to consider. For a westerner such as you or me, living quite comfortably, who needs to be that precious? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Alternatively, an eye for an eye and the world goes blind.

If you reject, totally, the moral precept “Thou shalt not kill” I’d say I’m the least of your problems and that rational argument is moot. And that I’d do my utmost to defend myself. In my opinion anyone advocating violence before all political measures are exhausted, however, is insane. Or has the middle name ‘W’. Or both. The fact that the vast majority of victims of violence are totally innocent should factor into your reasoning. I’ve never claimed killing in self-defence is unjustified. On this score “self defence” needs a bit of context. The relatively new idea of “preventative war” needs a bit of explaining - most of the world remains unconvinced.

bennie,
Well said, as John Lennon said "all we are saying, is give peace a chance" so far the U.S.A. and their deputy sheriff Australia under Howard have done anything but give peace a chance. Murdering 100's of thousands of innocent women and children on a pretence of WMD's then "oh well it's good we got Saddam" no WMD's have been found and Saddam is dead, the coalition of the willing have no more excuses, get out and leave it to the Iraqi's. We should be concerntrating on defending our our turf, somehow Aussies are always dragged into someone elses war on the other side of the globe.

Like Vietnam, another war the yanks dragged us into this one can't be won either, and if it is, what's the point? The ADF has seen enough overseas action, now is the time for peace, bring them home, as PM John Curtain did, all those years ago.

(cont…)

The suggestion “the morality behind the principle not to kill is bound to a strong Judaic-Western tradition where the sanctity of life and its preservation is important” begs many questions. Capital punishment in liberal/Christian democracies; the apparent belief that if something appears threatening, kill it; might is right; the failure to draw a distinction between one man’s freedom fighter & another man’s terrorist; the widespread conceit that the sanctity of life is less important in non Judaic-western countries. Perhaps you missed the irony in the Bush government denying they were responsible for 600 000 innocent Iraqi deaths; “No way, we only killed a tenth that many…” China on the other hand makes no apology, though a Chinese peasant feels the same pain as you or I would. In any case there’s much to be said for pointing out hypocrisy wherever it occurs.

So perhaps we should be talking in terms of administrations, not individuals? Here we often elect economists and lawyers as our leaders, one reason the Australian public is more financially literate (and peaceful) than most other countries. I’m generalising here but leaders do influence how countries are perceived, even behave. In America they elect entrepreneurs who have found, amongst other things, arms manufacture lucrative and war profitable. In China they appoint only apparatchiks; In Holland, progressives; In Iran, religious leaders; In Palestine, warlords; In Israel, generals…

Finally, would I prefer the law and society to defend me from your intent [to kill me]? Or, in you successfully executing my murder, merely be tried and found guilty? Well, all of the above. All three branches of government are there for my benefit.

There seems to be an unspoken assumption that people everywhere are representative of their government, or their faith, and deserve what’s coming to them. Mostly, they’re not and they don’t. They just want a little peace. But they need a great deal of help, some “eternal vigilance” from those in a position to help, from “good men” who have the choice to do nothing but don’t. So I simply plug away…

bennie,
You condemn the basis of Judaic Christian morality on a flawed part of western culture – just as it is equally wrong to denounce an entire Islamic culture on the actions of a fanatical constituent, albeit a threatening one.

The concept of peace is ancient. The Greek word eirene means absence of war. The expectation from ancient Judea was that swords will be beaten into plowshares and the lion will lay down with the lamb (Is. 11:6) The Hebrew word shalom includes such English ideas as peace, well-being, wholeness or health, welfare, prosperity, and safety. The New Testament includes all of the meanings of shalom: good relationships among peoples and nations - the needs of all persons are met where there is material well being, economic security, and prosperity for all. In short, there is no peace without justice. I will gladly enjoin with any culture exemplifying these values – our western culture perhaps shows a dismal failure in many of these areas, and to its detriment

Despite our blemished culture, we will not effectively address the danger fundamentalist terrorism poses to the western understanding of civil society unless we admit that we are not working from the same set of values. Trying to apply any of our ‘standards’ for peace (or even a ‘just war’ standard) to a situation in which one side views them as irrelevant won’t work. We should not tear up our own morality, for we become as the terrorist. Whether we accept it or not, we have all become ‘combatants’ in this war. Pacifism is a utopian ideal in today’s climate – perhaps quite relevant for Ghandi in the achievment of his political ends.

For the mind the danger comes in our finitude, our inability to think beyond our general sphere of reference; for the spirit, the danger is in the temptation to build our own theoretical ‘Babel’, rationalizing a comfortable way to deal with the uncomfortable. “A farmer is patient as he waits for the autumn and spring rains to water his crops.” - so it is for the coming of peace

For my money about the most refreshing post I’ve read on OLO.
Thanks. Think I’ll take a rest now…