A peace sign, which is widely associated with pacifism.

Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud (1864–1921) and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901.^[1] The concept is an ancient one that goes back to the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) and Jesus. In modern times, it was refined by Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) into the practice of steadfast nonviolent opposition which he called "satyagraha". Its effectiveness served as inspiration to Martin Luther King Jr. among many others. An iconic image of pacifism came out of the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 with the "Tank Man", where one protester stood in nonviolent opposition to a column of tanks. Historians have identified that event as being a key motivation that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall which ultimately precipitated the nonviolent fall of Communism. The Arab Spring movement is a current example where pacifist methods have been used.

Definition[link]

Pacifism covers a spectrum of views, including the belief that international disputes can and should be peacefully resolved, calls for the abolition of the institutions of the military and war, opposition to any organization of society through governmental force (anarchist or libertarian pacifism), rejection of the use of physical violence to obtain political, economic or social goals, the obliteration of force except in cases where it is absolutely necessary to advance the cause of peace, and opposition to violence under any circumstance, even defense of self and others. Historians of pacifism Peter Brock and Thomas Paul Socknat define pacifism "in the sense generally accepted in English-speaking areas" as "an unconditional rejection of all forms of warfare".^[2] Philosopher Jenny Teichman defines the main form of pacifism as "anti-warism", the rejection of all forms of warfare.^[3] Teichman's beliefs have been summarized by Brian Orend as "...A pacifist rejects war and believes there are no moral grounds which can justify resorting to war. War, for the pacifist, is always wrong." The whole theory is based on the idea that the end does NOT justify the means.^[4]

Moral considerations[link]

Pacifism may be based on moral principles (a deontological view) or pragmatism (a consequentialist view). Principled pacifism holds that at some point along the spectrum from war to interpersonal physical violence, such violence becomes morally wrong. Pragmatic pacifism holds that the costs of war and interpersonal violence are so substantial that better ways of resolving disputes must be found. Pacifists in general usually reject theories of Just War. Some, however, believe that if the foe is willing to hurt others, then it is justified to respond with force, even to the extent of the atomic bomb. Such people can be called semi-pacifists.

A counterargument to this is the belief that even if one side's resort to force can provide more peace in the long run, people on both sides will think they are on that side due to the worse side's propaganda, so it would be safer for both sides to oppose war despite both believing they are on that side which should resort to force.

Nonviolence[link]

Some pacifists follow principles of nonviolence, believing that nonviolent action is morally superior and/or pragmatically most effective. Some pacifists, however, support physical violence for emergency defense of self or others. Others support destruction of property in such emergencies or for conducting symbolic acts of resistance like pouring red paint to represent blood on the outside of military recruiting offices or entering air force bases and hammering on military aircraft.

By no means is all nonviolent resistance (sometimes also called civil resistance) based on a fundamental rejection of all violence in all circumstances. Many leaders and participants in such movements, while recognizing the importance of using non-violent methods in particular circumstances, have not been absolute pacifists. Sometimes, as with the US civil rights movement's march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, they have called for armed protection. The interconnections between civil resistance and factors of force are numerous and complex.^[5]

Non-aggression[link]

In contrast to the nonviolence principle stands the non-aggression principle which rejects the initiation of violence, but permits the use of violence for self-defense or delegated defense. People supporting the non-aggression principle claim that the moral prohibition of the use of violence follows from argumentation ethics, which applies only when people are using argumentation to solve disputes. So it does not apply when someone is subject to initiated violence, and hence self-defense is not morally rejected. Another possible approach is a semantic one: the claim that defense and aggression are fundamentally different, a point that is obscured when using terms like "defensive violence" and "initiated violence"; that there is no moral prohibition on defense and no need to justify it or make an exception for it.^{[citation needed]}

Dove[link]

"Dove" or "dovish" are informal terms used, especially in politics, for people who prefer to avoid war or prefer war as a last resort. The terms refer to the story of Noah's Ark in which the dove came to symbolize the hope of salvation and peace.^{[citation needed]} Similarly, in common parlance, the opposite of a dove is a hawk or war hawk.

Early history[link]

Vereschagin's painting Apotheosis of War (1871) came to be admired as one of the earliest artistic expressions of pacifism.

Advocacy of pacifism can be found far back in history and literature.

India[link]

Compassion for all life, human and nonhuman, is central to Buddhism, which was founded by Siddhattha Gotama; and also Jainism, which was founded by Mahavira 599–527 BC. Both the Buddha and Mahavira were by birth kshatriya, the varna (social order) of soldiers and officials. An unusual example is that of Emperor Ashoka who became a pacifist after the bloody Kalinga war.^{[citation needed]}

Greece[link]

In Ancient Greece, however, pacifism seems not to have existed except as a broad moral guideline against violence between individuals. No philosophical program of rejecting violence between states, or rejecting all forms of violence, seems to have existed. Aristophanes, in his play Lysistrata, creates the scenario of an Athenian woman's anti-war sex strike during the Peloponnesian War of 431–404 BC, and the play has gained an international reputation for its anti-war message. Nevertheless, it is both fictional and comical, and though it offers a pragmatic opposition to the destructiveness of war, its message seems to stem from frustration with the existing conflict (then in its twentieth year) rather than from a philosophical position against violence or war. Equally fictional is the nonviolent protest of Hegetorides of Thasos.

Italy[link]

Panda was a god of peace (according to a gloss by Philoxenos).^[6] (The derivation of this name "Panda" is from "pandi" 'unfold, publish', and is an allusion to the openness and forthrightness of pacifists.)

China[link]

During the Warring States Period, the pacifist Mohist School opposed aggressive war between the feudal states. They took this belief into action by using their famed defensive strategies to defend smaller states from invasion from larger states, hoping to dissuade feudal lords from costly warfare.

The Taoist scripture "Classic of Great Peace (Taiping jing)" foretells "the coming Age of Great Peace (taiping)."^[7] The Taiping Jing advocates "a world full of peace".^[8]

Africa[link]

The Lemba religion of southern French Congo, along with its symbolic herb, is named for pacifism : " "lemba, lemba" (peace, peace), describes the action of the plant lemba-lemba (Brillantaisia patula T. Anders)".^[9] Likewise in Cabinda, "Lemba is the spirit of peace, as its name indicates."^[10]

Chatham Islands[link]

The Moriori, of the Chatham Islands, practiced pacifism by order of their ancestor Nunuku-whenua. This enabled the Moriori to preserve what limited resources they had in their harsh climate, avoiding waste through warfare. In turn, this led to their almost complete annihilation in 1835 by invading Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama Māori from the Taranaki region of the North Island of New Zealand. The invading Māori killed, enslaved and cannibalised the Moriori.

New Zealand[link]

Among the Māori, the major god Rongo is the "god of peace".^[11] The minor god Kahungunu is "a pacifist in spirit".^[12]

Hawaii[link]

In Hawaii at the time of Captain Cook's visit (1779 Chr.E.), Lono was worshipped as "god of peace".^[13]

North America[link]

The Whilkut of northern California have a bird-god of peace-making, "Merk" ('Egret').^[14]

The Hopi people, whose name means 'Peaceful'^[15] ("Hopi" is a contraction of /hopitu/ 'peaceful'),^[16] have followed religious doctrine that is generally "anti-war".^[17]

Among the Aztecs, Quetzalcoatl was "god of Peace ..., who required his people to live in peace".^[18]

Judea under Roman control[link]

Throughout history, many have understood Jesus of Nazareth to have been a pacifist,^[19] drawing on his Sermon on the Mount (see Christian pacifism). In the sermon Jesus stated that one should "not resist an evildoer" and promoted his turn the other cheek philosophy. "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well... Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you."^[20][21][22] The New Testament story is of Jesus, besides preaching these words, surrendering himself freely to an enemy intent on having him killed and proscribing his followers from defending him.

There are those, however, who deny that Jesus was a pacifist^[19] and state that Jesus never said that not to fight,^[22] citing examples from the New Testament. One such instance portrays an angry Jesus driving dishonest market traders from the temple.^[22] A frequently quoted passage is Luke 22:36: "He said to them, 'But now, the one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one.'" Others have interpreted the non-pacifist statements in the New Testament to be related to self-defense or to be metaphorical and state that on no occasion did Jesus shed blood or urge others to shed blood.^[19]

Roman Empire[link]

Seneca the Younger expressed criticism of warfare in his book Naturales quaestiones (circa 65 AD).^[23]

Maximilian of Tebessa was a conscientious objector. He was killed for refusing to be conscripted. ^[24]

Cathars[link]

Known in the Balkans as Bogomils and in northern Italy and southern France as Cathars, they were pacifists totally dedicated to nonviolence. The Cathars were actually branded heretics, persecuted, and eventually annihilated by the Catholic Church through the Albigensian Crusade and the Inquisition that followed.^[25] "These heretics are worse than the saracens" exclaimed Pope Innocent III, and on March 10, 1208, after the murder of the papal legate Pierre de Castelnau, probably by Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, the pope took full advantage of it and proclaimed a crusade against a sect in southern France.^[26]

Modern history[link]

Penn's Treaty with the Indians. This treaty was never violated.

Beginning in the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation gave rise to a variety of new Christian sects, including the historic peace churches. Foremost among them were the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Amish, Mennonites and Church of the Brethren. After its founding by Quaker pacifist William Penn, Quaker-controlled colonial Pennsylvania employed an anti-militarist public policy. Unlike residents of many of the colonies, Quakers chose to trade peacefully with the Indians, including for land. The colonial province was, for the 75 years from 1681 to 1756, essentially unarmed and experienced little or no warfare in that period.

The humanist writer Desiderius Erasmus was one of the most outspoken pacifists of the Renaissance, arguing strongly against warfare in his essays The Praise of Folly (1509) and The Complaint of Peace (1517).^[27]

From the 16th to the 18th centuries, a number of thinkers devised plans for an international organisation that would promote peace, and reduce or even eliminate the occurrence of war. These included the French politician Duc de Sully, the philosophers Émeric Crucé and the Abbe de Saint-Pierre, and the Quakers William Penn and John Bellers.^[28][29] These internationalist ideas influenced both Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who promoted Saint-Pierre's plan, (while criticising many aspects of it), in Extrait du Projet de Paix Perpetuelle de Monsieur l'Abbe Saint-Pierre (1756),^[30] and Immanuel Kant, in his Thoughts on Perpetual Peace.^[31]

Bohemian Bernard Bolzano (1781–1848) taught about the social waste of militarism and the needlessness of war. He urged a total reform of the educational, social, and economic systems that would direct the nation's interests toward peace rather than toward armed conflict between nations.

Nineteenth century[link]

In the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, a number of peace societies were set up to prevent future conflicts. The first such movements were the New York Peace Society, founded in 1815 by the theologian David Low Dodge, and the Massachusetts Peace Society. These groups merged with other US peace groups in 1828 to form the American Peace Society.^[32] The London Peace Society (also known as the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace) was formed in 1816 with similar aims, and in the 1840s, British women formed "Olive Leaf Circles", groups of around 15 to 20 women, who discussed and promoted pacifist ideas.^[33]

Russian writer Leo Tolstoy was a fervent advocate of pacifism. In one of his latter works, The Kingdom of God is Within You, Tolstoy provides a detailed history, account and defense of pacifism. Tolstoy's work inspired a movement named after him advocating pacifism to arise in Russia and elsewhere.^[34] The book was a major early influence on Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948), and the two engaged in regular correspondence while Gandhi was active in South Africa.^[35]

Bertha von Suttner, the first woman to be a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, became a leading figure in the peace movement with the publication of her novel, Die Waffen nieder! ("Lay Down Your Arms!") in 1889 and founded an Austrian pacifist organization in 1891.

Resistance to colonialism[link]

In New Zealand, during the latter half of the 19th century British colonists used many tactics to confiscate land from the indigenous Māori, including warfare. In the 1870s and 1880s, Parihaka, then reputed to be the largest Māori village in New Zealand, became the centre of a major campaign of non-violent resistance to European occupation of confiscated land in the area. One Māori leader, Te Whiti-o-Rongomai, inspired warriors to stand up for their rights without using weapons, which had led to defeat in the past. In 1881 he convinced 2000 Maori to welcome battle-hardened British soldiers into their village and even offered food and drink. He allowed himself and his people to be arrested without resistance for opposing land confiscation. He is remembered as a great leader because the "passive resistance" he practiced prevented British massacres and even protected far more land than violent resistance.^[36]

"Leading Citizens want War and declare War; Citizens Who are Led fight the War" 1910 cartoon

Mohandas K. Gandhi was a major political and spiritual leader of India, instrumental in the Indian independence movement. The Nobel prize winning great poet Rabindranath Tagore, who was also an Indian, gave him the honorific "Mahatma", usually translated "Great Soul." He was the pioneer of a brand of nonviolence (or ahimsa) which he called satyagraha --translated literally as "truth force". This was the resistance of tyranny through civil disobedience that was not only nonviolent but also sought to change the heart of the opponent. He contrasted this with duragraha, "resistant force," which sought only to change behaviour with stubborn protest.

During his 30 years of work (1917–1947) for the independence of his country from the British Raj, Gandhi led dozens of nonviolent campaigns, spent over seven years in prison, and fasted nearly to the death on several occasions to obtain British compliance with a demand or to stop inter-communal violence. His efforts helped lead India to independence in 1947, and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom worldwide.

World War I[link]

There was strong antiwar sentiment in Western Europe during the 19th century. Many socialist groups and movements were antimilitarist, arguing that war by its nature was a type of governmental coercion of the working class for the benefit of capitalist elites. The French socialist pacifist leader Jean Jaurès was assassinated by a nationalist fanatic on July 31, 1914. The national parties in the Second International increasingly supported their respective nations in war and the International was dissolved in 1916. Nevertheless many groups protested against the war, including the traditional peace churches, the Woman's Peace Party (which was organized in 1915 and led by noted reformer Jane Addams) and the International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace (ICWPP) (also organized in 1915).^[37] Other groups included the American Union Against Militarism, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the American Friends Service Committee.^[38] Jeanette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress, was another fierce advocate of pacifism, the only person to vote no to America's entrance into both World Wars.

Between the two World Wars[link]

In the aftermath of World War I, there was a great revulsion against war, leading to the formation of War Resisters' International^[39] and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and in Britain the No More War Movement and the Peace Pledge Union (PPU). The League of Nations convened several disarmament conferences in the inter-war period.

The British Labour Party had a strong pacifist wing in the early 1930s and between 1931 and 1935 was led by George Lansbury, a Christian pacifist who later chaired the No More War Movement and was president of the PPU. The 1933 annual conference resolved unanimously to "pledge itself to take no part in war". "Labour's official position, however, although based on the aspiration towards a world socialist commonwealth and the outlawing of war, did not imply a renunciation of force under all circumstances, but rather support for the ill-defined concept of 'collective security' under the League of Nations. At the same time, on the party's left, Stafford Cripps's small but vocal Socialist League opposed the official policy, on the non-pacifist ground that the League of Nations was 'nothing but the tool of the satiated imperialist powers'."^[40] Lansbury was eventually persuaded to resign as Labour leader by the non-pacifist wing of the party and was replaced by Clement Attlee.^[41] As the threat from Nazi Germany increased in the 1930s, the Labour Party abandoned its pacifist position and supported re-armament, largely due to the efforts of Ernest Bevin and Hugh Dalton who by 1937 had also persuaded the party to oppose Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement.^[42]

A peace strike rally at University of California, Berkeley, April 1940

In the Soviet Union, pacifism was initially tolerated. However with the advent of Joseph Stalin's rule, while a pro-Soviet "peace movement" was allowed to operate abroad, "home-grown pacifism was ruthlessly suppressed"; all Soviet pacifist organisations were closed down by 1929. Stalin's regime also removed the law permitting conscientious objectors to serve in noncombatant roles in the Red Army.^[43] A number of Tolstoyan pacifists were known to be among prisoners in the gulags in the 1940s and 1950s. ^[44]

A noted Canadian pacifist was the politician J. S. Woodsworth, who called for the strengthening of the League of Nations to ensure world peace. Woodsworth also called for the use of economic sanctions against states that committed aggression, such as Italy when it invaded Abyssinia.^[45] Agnes Macphail, another noted Canadian pacifist, was the first woman to be elected to the Canadian House of Commons. Macphail objected to the Royal Military College of Canada in 1931 on pacific grounds.^[46] Macphail was also the first Canadian woman delegate to the League of Nations, where she worked with the World Disarmament Committee. Although a pacifist, she voted for Canada to enter World War II.

The Spanish Civil War proved a major test for international pacifism, and the work of pacifist organisations (such as War Resisters' International and the Fellowship of Reconciliation) and individuals (such as José Brocca and Amparo Poch) in that arena has until recently^[when?] been ignored or forgotten by historians, overshadowed by the memory of the International Brigades and other militaristic interventions. Shortly after the war ended, Simone Weil, despite having volunteered for service on the republican side, went on to publish The Iliad or the Poem of Force, a work that has been described as a pacifist manifesto.^[47] In response to the threat of fascism, some pacifist thinkers, such as Richard B. Gregg, devised plans for a campaign of nonviolent resistance in the event of a fascist invasion or takeover.^[48]

World War II[link]

With the start of World War II, pacifist and anti-war sentiment declined in nations affected by war. Even the communist-controlled American Peace Mobilization reversed its anti-war activism once Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, mainstream isolationist groups like the America First Committee, declined, but many smaller religious and socialist groups continued their opposition to war. Bertrand Russell argued that the necessity of defeating Adolf Hitler and the Nazis was a unique circumstance where war was not the worst of the possible evils; he called his position relative pacifism. H. G. Wells, who had joked after the armistice ending World War I that the British had suffered more from the war than they would have from submission to Germany, urged in 1941 a large-scale British offensive on the continent of Europe to combat Hitler and Nazism.^{[citation needed]} Similarly Albert Einstein wrote: "I loathe all armies and any kind of violence; yet I'm firmly convinced that at present these hateful weapons offer the only effective protection."^[49]

Pacifists in the Third Reich were dealt with harshly; German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky,^[50] and Olaf Kullmann, a Norwegian pacifist active during the Nazi occupation,^[51] were both imprisoned in concentration camps and died as a result of their mistreatment there. Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter was executed in 1943 for refusing to serve in the Wehrmacht.^[52]

There were conscientious objectors and war tax resisters in both World War I and World War II. The United States government allowed sincere objectors to serve in noncombatant military roles. However, those draft resisters who refused any cooperation with the war effort often spent much of each war in federal prisons. During World War II, pacifist leaders like Dorothy Day and Ammon Hennacy of the Catholic Worker Movement urged young Americans not to enlist in military service.

Later twentieth century[link]

Martin Luther King, Jr (1929–1968), a Baptist minister, led the American civil rights movement which successfully used Gandhian nonviolent resistance to repeal laws enforcing racial segregation and work for integration of schools, businesses and government. In 1957, his wife Coretta Scott King, Albert Schweitzer, Benjamin Spock, and others formed the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (now Peace Action) to resist the nuclear arms race. In 1958 British activists formed the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament with Bertrand Russell as its president.

In 1960, Thich Nhat Hanh came to the US to study comparative religion at Princeton University and subsequently was appointed lecturer in Buddhism at Columbia University. Thich Nhat Hanh had written a letter to Martin Luther King in 1965 entitled "Searching for the Enemy of Man" and during his 1966 stay in the US met with King and urged him to publicly denounce the Vietnam War.^[53] King gave his famous speech at the Riverside Church in New York City in 1967,^[54] his first to publicly question the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Other examples from this period include the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines led by Cory Aquino, and the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests which included the broadly publicized "Tank Man" incident.

Costa Rica[link]

On December 1, 1948, President José Figueres Ferrer of Costa Rica abolished the Costa Rica’s military.^[55] In 1949, the abolition of the military was introduced in Article 12 of the Costa Rican Constitution. Unlike its neighbors, Costa Rica has not endured a civil war since 1948. Figueres later remarked with justifiable pride that such reforms gave Costa Rica a deeper and more human revolution than that of Cuba.^[56] The budget previously dedicated to the military now is dedicated to providing health care services and education.^[57]

Religion[link]

Ahmadiyya[link]

According to the Ahmadiyya understanding of Islam, pacifism is a strong current, and jihad is one's personal inner struggle and should not be used violently for political motives. Violence is the last option only to be used to protect religion and one's own life in extreme situations of persecution. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, said that in contrary to the current views, Islam does not allow the use of sword in religion, except in the case of defensive wars, wars waged to punish a tyrant, or those meant to uphold freedom.^[58]

Ahmadiyya claims its objective to be the peaceful propagation of Islam with special emphasis on spreading the true message of Islam by the pen. Ahmadis point out that as per prophecy, who they believe was the promised messiah, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, rendered the concept of violent jihad unnecessary in modern times. They believe that the answer of hate should be given by love.^[59]

Bahá'í Faith[link]

Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith abolished holy war and emphasized its abolition as a central teaching of his faith.^[60] However, the Bahá'í Faith does not have an absolute pacifistic position. For example Bahá'ís are advised to do social service instead of active army service, but when this is not possible because of obligations in certain countries, the Bahá'í law of loyalty to one's government is preferred and the individual should perform the army service.^[61][62] Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith, noted that in the Bahá'í view, absolute pacifists are anti-social and exalt the individual over society which could lead to anarchy; instead he noted that the Bahá'í conception of social life follows a moderate view where the individual is not suppressed or exalted.^[63]

On the level of society, Bahá'u'lláh promotes the principle of collective security, which does not abolish the use of force, but prescribes "a system in which Force is made the servant of Justice."^[64] The idea of collective security from the Bahá'í teachings states that if a government violates a fundamental norm of international law or provision of a future world constitution which Bahá'ís believe will be established by all nations, then the other governments should step in.^[65]

Buddhism[link]

Buddhist Aung San Suu Kyi is a nonviolent pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Myanmar (Burma). A devout Buddhist, Suu Kyi won the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and in 1991 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a repressive military dictatorship. One of her best known speeches is the "Freedom From Fear" speech, which begins, "It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it."^[66]

Christianity[link]

Blessed are the Peacemakers (1917) by George Bellows

The Deserter (1916) by Boardman Robinson.

Peace churches[link]

Peace churches are Christian denominations explicitly advocating pacifism. The term "historic peace churches" refers specifically to three church traditions: the Church of the Brethren, the Mennonites (and some other Anabaptists, such as Amish and Hutterites), and the Quakers (Religious Society of Friends). The historic peace churches have, from their origins as far back as the 16th century, always taken the position that Jesus was himself a pacifist who explicitly taught and practiced pacifism, and that his followers must do likewise. Pacifist churches vary on whether physical force can ever be justified in self-defense or protecting others, as many adhere strictly to nonresistance when confronted by violence. But all agree that violence on behalf of a country or a government is prohibited for Christians.

Pentecostal churches[link]

Jay Beaman's thesis^[67] states that 13 of 21, or 62% of American Pentecostal groups formed by 1917 show evidence of being pacifist sometime in their history. Furthermore Jay Beaman has shown in his thesis^[67] that there has been a shift away from pacifism in the American Pentecostal churches to more a style of military chaplaincy and support of war. The major organisation for Pentecostal Christians who believe in pacifism is the PCPF, the Pentecostal Charismatic Peace Fellowship.

The United Pentecostal Church, an Apostolic/Oneness denomination, is the largest Pentecostal organization that takes an official stand of pacifism: its Articles of Faith read, "We are constrained to declare against participating in combatant service in war, armed insurrection... aiding or abetting in or the actual destruction of human life."^[68]

Other Christian denominations[link]

The Peace Pledge Union was a pacifist organisation from which the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship (APF) later emerged within the Anglican Church. The APF succeeded in gaining ratification of the pacifist position at two successive Lambeth Conferences, but many Anglicans would not regard themselves as pacifists. South African Bishop Desmond Tutu is the most prominent Anglican pacifist. Rowan Williams led an almost united Anglican Church in Britain in opposition to the 2003 Iraq War. In Australia Peter Carnley similarly led a front of bishops opposed to the Government of Australia's involvement in the invasion of Iraq.

The shadow of the cross symbolizes the connection between religion and war in Constantine's Sword (film).

The Catholic Worker Movement is concerned with both social justice and pacifist issues, and voiced consistent opposition to the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Many of its early members were imprisoned for their opposition to conscription.^[69] Within the Roman Catholic Church, the Pax Christi organisation is the premiere pacifist lobby group. It holds positions similar to APF, and the two organisations are known to work together on ecumenical projects. Within Roman Catholicism there has been a discernible move towards a more pacifist position through the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Popes Benedict XV, John XXIII and John Paul II were all vocal in their opposition to specific wars. By taking the name Benedict XVI, some suspect that Joseph Ratzinger will continue the strong emphasis upon nonviolent conflict resolution of his predecessor. However, the Roman Catholic Church officially maintains the legitimacy of Just War, which is rejected by some pacifists.

In the twentieth century there was a notable trend among prominent Roman Catholics towards pacifism. Individuals such as Dorothy Day and Henri Nouwen stand out among them. The monk and mystic Thomas Merton was noted for his commitment to pacifism during the Vietnam War era. Murdered Salvadoran Bishop Oscar Romero was notable for using non-violent resistance tactics and wrote meditative sermons focusing on the power of prayer and peace. School of the Americas Watch was founded by Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois in 1990 and uses strictly pacifist principles to protest the training of Latin American military officers by United States Army officers at the School of the Americas in the state of Georgia.

The Greek Orthodox Church also tends towards pacifism, though it has accepted defensive warfare through most of its history. However, more recently^[when?] it took a strong stance towards the war in Lebanon and its large community there refused to take up arms during its civil wars. It also supports dialogue with Islam. In 1998 the Third Pre-conciliar Pan-Orthodox Conference drew up a text on "the contribution of the Orthodox Church to the achievement of peace" emphasizing respect for the human person and the inseparability of peace from justice. The text states in part: "Orthodoxy condemns war in general, for she regards it as a consequence of the evil and sin in the world."^[70]

The Southern Baptist Convention has stated in the Baptist Faith and Message, "It is the duty of Christians to seek peace with all men on principles of righteousness. In accordance with the spirit and teachings of Christ they should do all in their power to put an end to war."^[71]

The United Methodist Church explicitly supports conscientious objection by its members "as an ethically valid position" while simultaneously allowing for differences of opinion and belief for those who do not object to military service.^[72]

Jainism[link]

Compassion for all life, human and non-human, is central to Jainism. Human life is valued as a unique, rare opportunity to reach enlightenment; to kill any person, no matter what crime he may have committed, is considered unimaginably abhorrent. It is a religion that requires monks and laity, from all its sects and traditions, to be vegetarian. Some Indian regions, such as Gujarat, have been strongly influenced by Jains and often the majority of the local Hindus of every denomination have also become vegetarian.^[73]

Judaism[link]

Some pre-Holocaust Hasidic groups were pacifist.^{[citation needed]} The Jewish Peace Fellowship is a New-York based^[74] nonprofit, nondenominational organization set up to provide a Jewish voice in the peace movement. The organization was founded in 1941 in order to support Jewish conscientious objectors who sought exemption from combatant military service.^[75][76] It is affiliated to the International Fellowship of Reconciliation.^[77] The small Neturei Karta group of anti-Zionist, ultra-orthodox Jews, supposedly take a pacifist line, saying that "Jews are not allowed to dominate, kill, harm or demean another people and are not allowed to have anything to do with the Zionist enterprise, their political meddling and their wars.".^[78] However, the Neturei Karta group do support violent, antisemitic terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas.^[79] Most religious Jews in Europe and North America agree with war when reasoning with the enemy does not work. Torah is full of examples when Jews were told to go and war against enemy lands. November 11 is a day a remembrance for many Jews as they honour those who fought to end the Hitler government which starved and burnt over six million Jews to death.

Government and political movements[link]

While many governments have tolerated pacifist views and even accommodated pacifists' refusal to fight in wars, others at times have outlawed pacifist and anti-war activity. In 1918, The United States Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1918. During the periods between World Wars I and World War II, pacifist literature or public advocacy was banned in Italy under Benito Mussolini, Germany after the rise of Adolf Hitler,^[80] and the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.^[44] In these nations, pacifism was denounced as cowardice; indeed, Mussolini referred to pacifist writings as the "propaganda of cowardice".^[80]

Today, the United States requires that all young men register for selective service but does not allow them to be classified as conscientious objectors unless they are drafted in some future reinstatement of the draft. does permits enlisted personnel to become conscientious objectors, allowing them to be discharged or transferred to noncombatant status.^[81] Some European governments like Switzerland, Greece, Norway and Germany offer civilian service. However, even during periods of peace, many pacifists still refuse to register for or report for military duty, risking criminal charges.

Anti-war and "pacifist" political parties seeking to win elections may moderate their demands, calling for de-escalation or major arms reduction rather than the outright disarmament which is advocated by many pacifists. Green parties list "non-violence" and "decentralization" towards anarchist co-operatives or minimalist village government as two of their ten key values. However, in power, Greens often compromise. The German Greens in the cabinet of Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder supported an intervention by German troops in Afghanistan in 2001 if that they hosted the peace conference in Berlin. However, during the 2002 election Greens forced Schröder to swear that no German troops would invade Iraq.

The controversial democratic peace theory holds that liberal democracies have never (or rarely) made war on one another and that lesser conflicts and internal violence are rare between and within democracies. It also argues that the growth in the number of democratic states will, in the not so distant future, end warfare.

Some pacifists and multilateralists are in favor of international criminal law as means to prevent and control international aggression. The International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over war crimes, but the crime of aggression has yet to be clearly defined in international law.

The Italian Constitution enforces a mild pacifist character on the Italian Republic, as Article 11 states that "Italy repudiates war as an instrument offending the liberty of the peoples and as a means for settling international disputes...." Similarly, Articles 24, 25 and 26 of the German Constitution (1949), Alinea 15 of the French Constitution (1946), Article 20 of the Danish Constitution (1953), Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution (1947) and several other mostly European constitutions correspond to the United Nations Charter by rejecting the institution of war in favour of collective security and peaceful cooperation.^[82]

Pacifism and abstention from political activity[link]

However, some pacifists, such as the Christian anarchist Leo Tolstoy and autarchist Robert LeFevre, consider the state a form of warfare. In addition, for doctrinal reason that a manmade government is inferior to divine governance and law, many pacifist-identified religious sects also refrain from political activity altogether, including the Anabaptists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mandaeans. This means that such groups refuse to participate in government office or serve under an oath to a government.

Anarcho-pacifism[link]

Henry David Thoreau, early proponent of anarcho-pacifism

Anarcho-pacifism (also pacifist anarchism or anarchist pacifism) is a form of anarchism which completely rejects the use of violence in any form for any purpose. The main precedent was Henry David Thoreau who through his work Civil Disobedience influenced the advocacy of both Leo Tolstoy and Mohandas Gandhi for nonviolent resistance.^[83] As a global movement, Anarchist pacifism emerged shortly before World War II in the Netherlands, Great Britain and the United States and was a strong presence in the subsequent campaigns for nuclear disarmament.

Violence has always been controversial in anarchism. While many anarchists during the 19th century embraced propaganda of the deed, Leo Tolstoy and other anarcho-pacifists directly opposed violence as a means for change. He argued that anarchism must by nature be nonviolent since it is, by definition, opposition to coercion and force and since the state is inherently violent, meaningful pacifism must likewise be anarchistic. His philosophy was cited as a major inspiration by Mohandas Gandhi, an Indian independence leader and pacifist who self-identified as an anarchist. Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis was also instrumental in establishing the pacifist trend within the anarchist movement.^[84] In France anti-militarism appeared strongly in individualist anarchist circles as Émile Armand founded "Ligue Antimilitariste" in 1902 with Albert Libertad and George Mathias Paraf-Javal.

Opposition to military taxation[link]

Many pacifists who would be conscientious objectors to military service are also opposed to paying taxes to fund the military. In the United States, The National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund works to pass a national law to allow conscientious objectors to redirect their tax money to be used only for non-military purposes.^[85]

Criticism[link]

This article's Criticism or Controversy section may compromise the article's neutral point of view of the subject. Please integrate the section's contents into the article as a whole, or rewrite the material. (June 2008)

One common argument against pacifism is the possibility of using violence to prevent further acts of violence (and reduce the "net-sum" of violence). This argument hinges on consequentialism: an otherwise morally objectionable action can be justified if it results in a positive outcome. For example, either violent rebellion, or foreign nations sending in troops to end a dictator's violent oppression may save millions of lives, even if many thousands died in the war. Those pacifists who base their beliefs on deontological grounds would oppose such violent action, arguing that nonviolent resistance should be just as effective and with a much lesser loss of life. Others would oppose organized military responses but support individual and small group self-defense against specific attacks if initiated by the dictator's forces. Pacifists may argue that military action could be justified should it subsequently advance the general cause of peace.

Still more pacifists would argue that a nonviolent reaction may not save lives immediately but would in the long run. The acceptance of violence for any reason makes it easier to use in other situations. Learning and committing to pacifism helps to send a message that violence is, in fact, not the most effective way. It can also help people to think more creatively and find more effective ways to stop violence without more violence.

In light of the common criticism of pacifism as not offering a clear alternative policy, one approach to finding "more effective ways" has been the attempt to develop the idea of "defence by civil resistance", also called "social defence". This idea, which is not necessarily dependent on acceptance of pacifist beliefs, is based on relying on nonviolent resistance against possible threats, whether external (such as invasion) or internal (such as coup d'état).

There have been some works on this topic, including by Adam Roberts^[86] and Gene Sharp.^[87] However, no country has adopted this approach as the sole basis of its defence.^[88] (For further information and sources see social defence.)

Japanese, Italian and Nazi aggression that precipitated World War II often is cited^{[by whom?]}as an argument against pacifism. If these forces had not been challenged and defeated militarily, the argument goes, many more people would have died under their oppressive rule. Adolf Hitler told the British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax in 1937 that the British should "shoot Gandhi, and if this doesn't suffice to reduce them to submission, shoot a dozen leading members of the Congress, and if that doesn't suffice shoot 200, and so on, as you make it clear that you mean business."^[89]

Hermann Göring described, during an interview at the Nuremberg Trials, how denouncing and outlawing pacifism was an important part of the Nazis' seizure of power: "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."^[90]

Some commentators on the most nonviolent forms of pacifism, including Jan Narveson, argue that such pacifism is a self-contradictory doctrine. Narveson claims that everyone has rights and corresponding responsibilities not to violate others' rights. Since pacifists give up their ability to protect themselves from violation of their right not to be harmed, then other people thus have no corresponding responsibility, thus creating a paradox of rights. Narveson said that "the prevention of infractions of that right is precisely what one has a right to when one has a right at all". Narveson then discusses how rational persuasion is a good but often inadequate method of discouraging an aggressor. He considers that everyone has the right to use any means necessary to prevent deprivation of their civil liberties and force could be necessary.^[91]

Many pacifists^[who?] would argue that not only are there other ways to protect oneself but that some of those ways are far more effective than violence, and that physical harm is not the only variety that can be done. Often pacifists would much rather take the physical harm inflicted by another rather than cause themselves emotional or psychological harm, not to mention harming the other.

The ideology and political practice of pacifism also have been criticized by the radical American activist Ward Churchill, in his essay, Pacifism as Pathology. Churchill argues that the social and political advancements pacifists claim resulted from non-violent action always have been made possible by concurrent violent struggles. In the late 1990s, Churchill's work convinced many anarchist and left-wing activists to adopt what they called "diversity of tactics" using "black bloc" formations that engage in property destruction and scuffles with police at larger mainstream protests.^[92][93]

One powerful pacifist reply to Churchill was from American activist George Lakey, a founder of Movement for a New Society, in a detailed response to Pacifism as Pathology. Lakey quotes Martin Luther King in entitling his 2001 article Nonviolent Action as the Sword that Heals.^[94] However, he takes on Churchill's assumptions and reading of history from a pragmatic viewpoint, arguing the superiority of nonviolent action by describing "some movements that learned, from their own pragmatic experience, that they could wage struggle more successfully through nonviolent direct action than through violence."

In his book The End of Faith, Sam Harris argues that pacifism is a fallacy, combining hesitance with cowardice, in that the social context in which a pacifist can protest was created by the actions of direct activists. In the same philosophical chapter, he goes on to compare the collateral damage that could result from practicing torture with that resulting from errant bombing. He posits that if one is willing to accept the collateral damage that results from the incidental bombing of civilians on the one hand, one cannot denounce the collateral damage resulting from the accidental torture of the innocent on the other. He notes that the only difference between the two is that the revulsion one experiences when directly causing the suffering of another human being is more potent when done in person than when done from the safety of an aircraft or a command center. He brings to light these similarities not to so much to argue for the potential use of torture in combat but to demonstrate the hideousness of both. Ultimately, his book suggests just and humane action must be taken in order to reduce the total suffering of sentient beings.

See also[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

Shalom: The Jewish Peace Letter. An online zine published by the Jewish Peace Fellowship.org/Shalom

External links[link]

Find more about Pacifism on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Images and media from Commons
	Quotations from Wikiquote

v t e Anti-war Opposition to wars or aspects of war Military action in Iran 2011 military intervention in Libya Iraq War War in Afghanistan War on Terrorism Sri Lankan Civil War Landmines Vietnam War Nuclear armament World War I World War II Second Boer War American Civil War War of 1812 Agents of opposition Anti-war organizations Anti-nuclear organizations Conscientious objectors Draft dodgers Peace movement Peace churches Peace camp War resisters War tax resisters Related ideologies Anarcho-pacifism Anti-imperialism Antimilitarism Anti-nuclear Appeasement Christian anarchism Hippie Nonviolence Nonkilling Pacificism Pacifism Satyagraha Simple living Socialism Soviet influence on the peace movement Peace punks Media Art Books Films Songs Symbols

v t e Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Family Kasturba Harilal Manilal Ramdas Devdas Samaldas Arun Rajmohan Tushar Gopalkrishna Influences Ahimsa Ashram Bhagavad Gita Henry David Thoreau Civil disobedience Fasting Hinduism Jainism John Ruskin Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You The Masque of Anarchy Pacifism Sermon on the Mount Shrimad Rajchandra Unto This Last Vegetarianism Life Civil rights movement in South Africa Bardoli Satyagraha Champaran and Kheda Satyagraha Non-cooperation Chauri Chaura Purna Swaraj Salt Satyagraha Vaikom Satyagraha Poona Pact Quit India Assassination Philosophy Gandhism Economics Sarvodaya Satyagraha The Story of My Experiments with Truth Swadeshi Swaraj Associates Vinoba Bhave Vallabhbhai Patel Acharya Kripalani Mirabehn C. F. Andrews Narhari Parikh Ravi Shankar Vyas Mohanlal Pandya Mahadev Desai Abbas Tyabji Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Dada Dharmadhikari J. C. Kumarappa Hermann Kallenbach Legacy Artistic depictions Gandhigiri Gandhi Peace Prize Gujarat Vidyapith Jamia Millia Islamia Kashi Vidyapeeth Memorial Hospital Seven Blunders of the World Influenced James Bevel Steve Biko 14th Dalai Lama Maria Lacerda de Moura James Lawson Martin Luther King, Jr. Nelson Mandela Aung San Suu Kyi Lanza del Vasto Memorials Physical Gandhi Smriti Kanyakumari Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site National Gandhi Museum Pietermaritzburg Rajghat Observances Gandhi Jayanti International Day of Non-Violence Season for Nonviolence Category Commons Wikiquotes

Ursula Franklin
Ursula Franklin in 2006 during the launch of The Ursula Franklin Reader at Massey College in Toronto
Born	(1921-09-16) 16 September 1921 (age 90) Munich, Germany
Residence	Toronto, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Fields	Metallurgist Research Physicist
Institutions	University of Toronto
Alma mater	Technical University of Berlin University of Toronto
Known for	Archaeometry Pacifism Feminism Theories of technology
Influences	Jacques Ellul Lewis Mumford C.B. Macpherson E. F. Schumacher Vandana Shiva
Notable awards	Governor General's Award (1991) Pearson Medal of Peace (2001)

Ursula Martius Franklin, CC OOnt FRSC (born September 16, 1921 in Munich, Germany), is a Canadian metallurgist, research physicist, author and educator who has taught at the University of Toronto for more than 40 years.^[1] She is the author of The Real World of Technology, which is based on her 1989 Massey Lectures, and The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map, a collection of her papers, interviews, and talks. Franklin is a practising Quaker and has been active in working on behalf of pacifist and feminist causes. She has written and spoken extensively about the futility of war and the connection between peace and social justice.^[2] Franklin has received numerous honours and awards, including the Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case for promoting the equality of girls and women in Canada and the Pearson Medal of Peace for her work in advancing human rights. A Toronto high school, Ursula Franklin Academy, has been named in her honour.^[3]

Franklin is best known for her writings on the political and social effects of technology. For her, technology is much more than machines, gadgets or electronic transmitters. It is a comprehensive system that includes methods, procedures, organization, "and most of all, a mindset".^[4] She distinguishes between holistic technologies used by craft workers or artisans and prescriptive ones associated with a division of labour in large-scale production. Holistic technologies allow artisans to control their own work from start to finish. Prescriptive technologies organize work as a sequence of steps requiring supervision by bosses or managers.^[5] Franklin argues that the dominance of prescriptive technologies in modern society discourages critical thinking and promotes "a culture of compliance".^[6]

For some, Franklin belongs in the intellectual tradition of Harold Innis and Jacques Ellul who warn about technology's tendency to suppress freedom and endanger civilization.^[7] Franklin herself acknowledges her debt to Ellul as well as to several other thinkers including Lewis Mumford, C.B. Macpherson, E. F. Schumacher and Vandana Shiva.^[8]

Career[link]

Ursula Franklin began her career during World War II, but was imprisoned in a Nazi work camp because her mother was Jewish. She spent the rest of the war helping to repair bombed buildings. In 1948, Franklin received her Ph.D. in experimental physics at the Technical University of Berlin and emigrated to Canada the following year.^[9] She completed post-doctoral studies at the University of Toronto (U of T) and worked for 15 years at the Ontario Research Foundation. In 1967, Franklin became the first female professor in the U of T's department of metallurgy and materials science.^[10]

A U.S. nuclear weapons test in 1953. Franklin helped end such above-ground testing.

Franklin was a pioneer in the field of archaeometry, which applies modern materials analysis to archaeology. She worked for example, on the dating of prehistoric bronze, copper and ceramic artifacts.^[11] In the early 1960s, Franklin investigated levels of strontium-90—a radioactive isotope in fallout from nuclear weapons testing—in children's teeth.^[11] Her research contributed to the cessation of atmospheric weapons testing.^[10] Franklin has published more than a hundred scientific papers and contributions to books on the structure and properties of metals and alloys as well as on the history and social effects of technology.^[12]

As a member of the Science Council of Canada during the 1970s, Franklin chaired an influential study on conserving resources and protecting nature. The study's 1977 report, Canada as a Conserver Society, recommended a wide range of steps aimed at reducing wasteful consumption and the environmental degradation that goes with it.^[13] The work on that study helped shape Franklin's ideas about the complexities of modern technological society.^[14]

Franklin was also active in the Voice of Women (VOW), now the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, one of Canada's leading social advocacy organizations. In 1968, she and VOW national president Muriel Duckworth presented a brief to a House of Commons committee asserting that Canada and the United States had entered into military trade agreements without adequate public debate. They argued that these commercial arrangements made it difficult for Canada to adopt independent foreign policy positions such as calling for an immediate U.S. military withdrawal from South Vietnam.^[15] In 1969, Franklin and Duckworth called on a committee of the Canadian Senate to recommend that Canada discontinue its chemical and biological weapons research and spend money instead on environmental research and preventive medicine.^[16] Franklin was also part of a 1969 VOW delegation that urged the federal government to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and establish a special agency to oversee Canadian disarmament.^[17]

In the 1980s, Franklin participated in an organized campaign to win the right for conscientious objectors to redirect part of their income taxes from military uses to peaceful purposes. Her 1987 paper, written to support the campaign, argued that the well-recognized right to refuse military service on grounds of conscience should be extended to include the right to refuse to pay taxes for war preparations.^[18] Franklin asserted that the freedom of conscience provision of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guaranteed this form of conscientious objection.^[19] Her paper was to be part of an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. The lower courts had convicted those withholding part of their taxes of violating the Income Tax Act. In 1990 however, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal.^[20]

Following Franklin's retirement, she and several other retired female faculty members filed a class action lawsuit against the University of Toronto claiming it had been unjustly enriched by paying women faculty less than comparably qualified men. In 2002, the lawsuit was settled when the university acknowledged that many of its female professors had suffered from gender barriers and pay discrimination during their careers. As a result, about 60 retired women faculty received a pay equity settlement intended to compensate them for the lower salaries and pensions they had received.^[21]

Franklin continues to have a strong association with the University of Toronto's Massey College as a continuing senior fellow and senior resident.^[3] Her many activities include encouraging young women to pursue careers in science, promoting peace and social justice, and speaking and writing about the social effects of science and technology.^[22] Many of her articles and speeches on pacifism, feminism, technology and teaching are collected in The Ursula Franklin Reader published in 2006. Franklin is also the author of The Real World of Technology which is based on her 1989 Massey Lectures broadcast on CBC Radio.

Pacifism, feminism and war[link]

The cover of Franklin's 2006 book on pacifism, feminism, technology, teaching and learning

Ursula Franklin explains in a prelude to her 2006 collection of papers, interviews and talks that her lifelong interest in structures, in what she terms "the arrangement and interplay of the parts within a whole," has been at the root of most of her activities.^[23] Looking back after almost 40 years, she adds, "I can see how I have tried to wrestle with just one fundamental question: 'How can one live and work as a pacifist in the here and now and help to structure a society in which oppression, violence, and wars would diminish and co-operation, equality, and justice would rise?'"^[23] As part of the answer, Franklin turns to the metaphor of mapmaking to explain her intellectual journey. "Increasingly I found the maps of conventional wisdom inadequate for my travels," she writes. "I became unwilling and unable to orient my life according to national maps depicting the realms of 'them' and 'us,' of good guys and bad guys, of winning, defeating, and being defeated; in short, all those maps drawn up for travel towards private gain and personal advancement."^[24] Franklin concludes that she has been guided in understanding what she calls "the real world" by "the maps of pacifism and feminism".^[24]

Pacifism and conscience[link]

Central to Franklin's pacifism and her view of life is what she calls "the Quaker vision of the world".^[25] Individual conscience is at the heart of that vision. So too, is the need to discern appropriate ways of working for peace in each time and place "rather than relying on a dogma of unvarying rules of conduct".^[26] She notes that for more than 300 years, Quakers have opposed war and violence and have objected to military service and conscription. They have worked on reconciliation, peace research and disarmament and in many countries have won the right for conscientious objectors to perform alternative service instead of taking part in war.^[27] Franklin remarks that Quaker principles have not changed, but technology has changed the nature of war. In a modern technological society she argues, there is no longer a clear boundary between war and peace.^[27] War planning is constant during peacetime and when wars are fought, women and children become targets.^[28] Nations no longer depend primarily on conscripting military recruits, but rely on advanced weapons systems that are costly to build or acquire.^[29] She writes that the arms race is driven by a "technological imperative" which requires the creation of an enemy as a permanent social institution:

Modern weapons technologies, including the required research and development, are particularly capital-intensive and costly. The time between initial research and the deployment of weapon systems can be as long as a decade, during which the government must provide financial security and political justification for the project. In other words, the state not only provides the funding but also identifies a credible external enemy who warrants such expenditure.^[30]

Franklin points out that the technological nature of war requires states to conscript the resources needed to pay for hi-tech devices designed for destruction. Thus, people opposed to war are forced—through taxation—to pay for war preparations even if it violates their individual conscience.^[31]

Peace and social justice[link]

In her 1987 paper, Reflections on Theology and Peace, Ursula Franklin contends that "peace is not the absence of war—peace is the absence of fear."^[32] She asserts however, that fear of war and violence is not the only kind of fear that destroys peace. She includes fears arising for example, from economic insecurity, unemployment and the lack of adequate shelter. Franklin points to what she calls "the threat system" which manages people by instilling fear and uncertainty at all levels of society.^[33]

For her, social justice is the essential element needed to banish fear and bring peace. Justice means freedom from oppression, but it also implies equality for all. "In God's eyes," she writes, "all creatures have value and are subjects of equal care and love; similarly, in a society of justice and peace, all people matter equally."^[35] Franklin suggests that in consumer-oriented societies, war and violence are the inevitable result of an acquisitive lifestyle that rejects caring and social justice. She quotes historian Lewis Mumford's observation that during the rise of capitalism, the sins of greed, gluttony, avarice, envy and luxury became cardinal virtues.^[36] Mumford goes on to argue that the "moral change that took place under capitalism can be summed up in the fact that human purposes, human needs, and human limits no longer exercised a directing and restraining influence upon industry: people worked, not to maintain life, but to increase money and power and to minister to the ego that found satisfaction in vast accumulations of money and power."^[37] Franklin extends Mumford's argument by pointing to new global realities such as militarized economies dependent on weapons production and national borders increasingly closed to refugees. "Any modern theology of peace," she writes, "must, I think, take into account the worldwide drift towards 'techno-fascism,' the anti-people, anti-justice form of global management and power sharing that is developing around the world."^[38]

Globalization as warfare[link]

Franklin argues that the end of the Cold War brought two main changes. First, the threat of war between the United States and Soviet Union was replaced by regional wars among smaller states. Second, war was transposed to what Franklin calls "another key"—the struggle for global commercial and economic dominance.^[39] She asserts that this new form of war is now called globalization and its battlefields are global stock and currency markets.^[40] This economic warfare defines the enemy as all those who care about the values of community. "Whatever cannot be merely bought and sold," Franklin writes, "whatever cannot be expressed in terms of money and gain-loss transactions stands in the way of the 'market' as enemy territory to be occupied, transformed and conquered."^[41] A main strategy in this kind of warfare is the privatization of formerly public domains such as culture, health care, prisons and education to generate private profit. Franklin contends that the new economic warlords or "marketeers" aim, for example, to transform "the ill health or misery of our neighbours into investment opportunities for the next round of capitalism."^[42] She argues that marketeers have become occupying forces served by "puppet governments who run the country for the benefit of the occupiers."^[42]

Franklin recommends that resistance take the form of refusing to speak the language of the occupiers. This language includes such terms as stakeholders, users, health-care providers and consumers of education to refer to teachers and students, doctors, nurses, patients and communities.^[43] Franklin also calls for resistance through court challenges and "the creative use of electronic media to bypass the occupation forces' control of information."^[43] Finally, Franklin is a strong supporter of citizen politics, a civic movement which focuses on practical solutions to common problems—everything from the absence of peace to homelessness and local traffic congestion.^[44] Borrowing a Quaker term, Franklin calls on citizens to engage in scrupling, the process of sitting down together to discuss and clarify common moral and political concerns.^[45] She writes that citizen politics does not seek to overthrow existing governments but to improve them "whether those in power like it or not."^[46] The movement also tries to defend communities against those intent, in Franklin's words, on "turning the globe into one giant commercial resource base, while denying a decent and appropriate habitat to many of the world's citizens."^[47]

War, failure and 9/11[link]

Again and again in her writings, speeches and interviews, Ursula Franklin insists that war and its violence are not only morally wrong, but also ineffective, impractical, and costly. During a radio interview broadcast two days after the September 11 attacks in the U.S., Franklin argued that violence nowadays is always unsuccessful even for the powerful who try to use it. "Nothing has been resolved by violence over the past fifty years," Franklin said. "The rational thinking that force does not work, even for the enforcer, is staring us in the face."^[48] In a newspaper article published just before the first anniversary of 9/11, Franklin wrote, "It is crucial to recognize that war and war measures are fundamentally dysfunctional instruments of problem-solving. Violence begets more violence, war begets further wars, more enemies and more suffering."^[49]

Franklin suggested that it would have been more effective if, instead of launching a War on Terrorism, the U.S. had interpreted the attacks as a political earthquake instead of an act of war. She argued that social and political structures are as inherently unstable as geological ones. "Geological fissures and human terrorists are created in a context of forces that can be understood and—at times—mitigated. Neither can be eliminated by bombing."^[51]

Franklin asserts that militarism is the ultimate development of hierarchical social structures and threat-based systems. "They all work under the implicit assumption that some people matter much less than others, and that all people are of interest only as long as they are needed to support the system or to justify it."^[52] She notes that many prominent advocates for women's rights such as Jane Addams and Sylvia Pankhurst were pacifists. "To me, the struggle for women's rights and the opposition to militarism in all its forms are two sides of the same coin."^[53]

When a CBC Radio interviewer suggested to Franklin that her ideas about peace and justice were not connected with what was actually happening in the aftermath of 9/11, she readily agreed. "Yes, you are quite right. They are totally unconnected. I have spent the best part of my life trying to put these thoughts into the stream that makes decisions, and I've been spectacularly unsuccessful. That, I think, is a reflection on my ability in the climate of the time, not on the value of the thoughts."^[54]

Technological society[link]

For Ursula Franklin, technology is a set of practices in the "here and now" rather than an array of machines or gadgets.^[55] It is also a comprehensive system. "Technology involves organization, procedures, symbols, new words, equations, and, most of all, a mindset."^[4] Her definition is similar to the French thinker Jacques Ellul's concept of technique. Like Ellul, Franklin asserts that technological methods dominate the modern world. "Technology has built the house in which we all live," she writes, "today there is hardly any human activity that does not occur within this house."^[56] As such, technology is a central element of the here and now. "In the broadest sense of the term, the here and now is our environment, that is, all that is around us—the ever-changing overlay of nature, the built environment, the institutional and social structures within which human activities take place, as well as the activities themselves—'the way things are done around here.'"^[57] Franklin sees her studies of technology as an attempt to understand how technological practices affect the advancement of justice and peace.^[57]

Holistic and prescriptive technologies[link]

According to Ursula Franklin, technology is not a set of neutral tools, methods or practices. She asserts that various categories of technology have markedly different social and political effects. She distinguishes for example, between work-related and control-related technologies. Work-related technologies, such as electric typewriters, are designed to make tasks easier. Computerized word processing makes typing easier still. But when computers are linked into work stations—part of a system—word processing becomes a control-related technology. "Now workers can be timed," Franklin writes, "assignments can be broken up, and the interaction between the operators can be monitored."^[58]

An ancient Chinese bronze ding. Franklin describes the prescriptive methods used in producing such ritual vessels.

Franklin extends the distinction between work and control-related technologies to the larger concept of holistic and prescriptive ones. This enables her to consider the social implications of how work is performed. She writes that holistic technologies are usually associated with craft work. "Artisans, be they potters, weavers, metal-smiths, or cooks, control the process of their own work from beginning to finish."^[58] Artisans may specialize in a particular kind of product, but they are always in total control of the process of production and each thing they make or create is unique.^[59] Prescriptive technologies, on the other hand, break work down into a series of discrete, standardized steps. "Each step is carried out by a separate worker, or group of workers, who need to be familiar only with the skills of performing that one step."^[60]

Although the division of labour inherent in prescriptive technologies is usually associated with the industrial revolution, Franklin points out that such production methods have been used since ancient times. Chinese bronze casting before 1200 BC for example, required a tightly controlled and closely supervised production process as well as a strict division of labour.^[61] Franklin writes that when she studied Chinese bronze casting as a metallurgist, "the extraordinary social meaning of prescriptive technologies dawned on me. I began to understand what they meant, not just in terms of casting bronze but in terms of discipline and planning, of organization and command."^[62]

Technology's culture of compliance[link]

Franklin argues that in modern society, control-related and prescriptive technologies are dominant. "When work is organized as a sequence of separately executable steps, the control over the work moves to the organizer, the boss or manager," she writes. "In political terms, prescriptive technologies are designs for compliance."^[63] For Franklin, workers accustomed to following prescriptive rules become used to seeing external control and internal compliance as normal and necessary. They also come to believe that there is only one prescribed way of performing a wide variety of tasks. "While we should not forget that these prescriptive technologies are often exceedingly effective and efficient, they come with an enormous social mortgage. The mortgage means that we live in a culture of compliance, that we are ever more conditioned to accept orthodoxy as normal, and to accept that there is only one way of doing 'it'."^[64]

Franklin points out that prescriptive technologies have moved beyond materials production to the realms of administration, government and social services. She argues that tasks which require nurturing or caring for people, in health and education for example, are best done holistically. Yet such tasks are increasingly coming under the sway of prescriptive technologies based on what Franklin calls a production model. Professor Heather Menzies, an admirer of Franklin, describes for example, how nursing tasks are performed in keeping with preset, computerized check lists which leave little discretionary time for dealing with the unexpected or talking with patients who are lonely or distressed.^[65] Franklin herself notes that schools and universities test and promote students based on strict production schedules yet "if there ever was a holistic process, a process that cannot be divided into rigid predetermined steps, it is education."^[66]

Technology and power[link]

Franklin writes that household sewing on machines such as this gave way to the industrial production of cheap clothing in sweatshops that exploited female labour.

Ursula Franklin rejects the idea that powerful technologies automatically determine the ways in which people live and work. She maintains that the uses of technology are not preordained, but are the result of conscious choices.^[67] The dominant prescriptive technologies establish structures of power and control that follow what Franklin sees as male patterns of hierarchy, authoritarianism, competition and exclusion.^[68] Female workers are often victims of these patterns. Mechanical sewing machines were introduced in 1851 with the promise that they would liberate women from household drudgery. But when the machines ended up in factory sweatshops to produce cheap clothing, the new technology was used to exploit female workers.^[69] "A strictly prescriptive technology with the classic division of labour arose from the introduction of new, supposedly liberating 'domestic' machines," Franklin notes. "In the subsequent evolution of the garment industry, much of the designing, cutting, and assembling began to be automated, often to the complete exclusion of workers."^[70] She points to similar examples in other industries. Female operators helped introduce the telephone only to be replaced by automated switchboards after the technology had been successfully established while secretaries struggled to make the early mechanical typewriters function properly, but ended up performing fragmented and increasingly meaningless tasks.^[71]

"Many technological systems, when examined for context and overall design, are basically anti-people," Franklin writes. "People are seen as sources of problems while technology is seen as a source of solutions."^[72] As a result, people live and work under conditions structured for the well-being of technology even though manufacturers and promoters always present new technologies as liberating.^[73] "The dreams of flight, of fast private transportation, of instant communication across continents, and of helpful machines, all stress liberation from hard physical labour at work or drudgery at home."^[74] But once technologies are accepted and standardized, they often enslave or displace their users. Franklin argues that work could be made less prescriptive in workplaces that are less rigidly hierarchical if we adopted more holistic practices based on the way women traditionally work in running households for example, or in caring for children.^[75]

Communications technologies[link]

Franklin asserts that powerful communications technologies have reshaped political and social realities distancing people from each other and their immediate environments. Radio and television for example, transmit messages instantaneously from afar—messages that are separated from people's experiences in the vicinities where they live and work. Franklin calls such messages pseudorealities. She writes they are based on images that are constructed, staged and selected to create emotional effects and the illusion of "being there" as a participant, not just as an observer.^[76] She asserts however, that one-way communications technologies reduce or eliminate reciprocity, the normal give and take of face-to-face communication.^[77]

According to Franklin, the selective fragments or pseudorealities that become news stories are produced to attract and hold people's attention by focusing on the unusual over the usual. She acknowledges that no one is forced to watch television or listen to radio; people can explore other channels of communication. But the pseudorealities created by the media are still there "and the world is structured to believe in them."^[78] She argues that images from afar have taken over much of our everyday reality like an immensely powerful occupation force. "And somewhere, someone will have to ask, 'How come the right to change our mental environment—to change the constructs of our minds and the sounds around us—seems to have been given away without anybody's consent?'"^[79]

Silence and the commons[link]

"Silence," Franklin writes, "possesses striking similarities [to] aspects of life and community, such as unpolluted water, air, or soil, that were once taken as normal and given, but have become special and precious in technologically mediated environments."^[80] She argues that the technological ability to separate recorded sound from its source makes the sound as permanent as the Muzak that plays endlessly in public places without anyone's consent.^[81] For Franklin, such canned music is a manipulative technology programmed to generate predictable emotional responses and to increase private profit. She compares this destruction of silence to the British enclosure laws which fenced off the commons for private farming.^[82]

Franklin maintains that the core of the strength of silence is its openness to unplanned events. Quakers, she writes, worship God in collective silence. "I think that if any one of you attended a Quaker meeting, particularly on a regular basis," she told a 1993 conference on acoustic ecology, "you would find that suddenly, out of the silence, someone will speak about something that had just entered your mind. It's an uncanny thing, but the strength of collective silence is probably one of the most powerful spiritual forces."^[83] Franklin advocates defending the human right to public silence—negotiating one music-free elevator for example, or lobbying for quiet rooms in public buildings. She also recommends starting and ending meetings with a few minutes of silence.^[84]

Awards and honours[link]

Franklin has received numerous awards and honours during her long career. In 1984, she became the first woman at the University of Toronto to be named University Professor,^[11] a special title which is the highest honour given by the university.^[85] She was named Officer of the Order of Canada in 1981 and a Companion of the Order in 1992.^[86] She was appointed to the Order of Ontario in 1990. In 1982, she was given the award of merit for the City of Toronto, mainly for her work in neighbourhood planning.^[87] She received an honorary membership in the Delta Kappa Gamma Society International for women educators in 1985. Two years later, she was given the Elsie Gregory McGill memorial award for her contributions to education, science and technology. In 1989, she received the Wiegand Award which recognizes Canadians who have made significant contributions to the understanding of the human dimensions of science and technology.^[88] In 1991, she received a Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Person's Case for advancing the equality of girls and women in Canada. She received the 2001 Pearson Medal of Peace for her work in human rights. She has a Toronto high school named after her, Ursula Franklin Academy.^[89] In 2004, Franklin was awarded one of Massey College's first Adrienne Clarkson Laureateships, honoring outstanding achievement in public service.^[90] She has received honorary degrees from more than a dozen Canadian universities including a Doctor of Science from Queen's University and a Doctor of Humane Letters from Mount Saint Vincent University, both awarded in 1985.^[91]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Ellul, Jacques. (1964) The Technological Society. New York: Vintage Books. OCLC 1955603
• Kerans, Marion Douglas. (1996) Muriel Duckworth: A Very Active Pacifist. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing. ISBN 1-895686-68-7
• Lumley, Elizabeth (editor). (2008) Canadian Who's Who 2008. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-4071-8
• McLuhan, Marshall. (2003) Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Critical edition, edited by W. Terrence Gordon. Corte Madera, CA: Gingko Press Inc. ISBN 1-58423-073-8
• Menzies, Heather. (2005) No Time: Stress and the Crisis of Modern Life. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd. ISBN 1-55365-045-X
• Mumford, Lewis. (1973) The Condition of Man. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc. ISBN 0-15-621550-0
• Rose, Ellen. An Interview with Heather Menzies (2003). Antigonish Review, # 136, p. 111. January 1, 2004. ISSN 0003-5661
• Science Council of Canada. (1977) Canada as a Conserver Society: Resource Uncertainties and the Need for New Technologies. Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada. ISBN 0-660-01400-9
• Sheinin, Rose. (1988) The Canadian Encyclopedia. (Second Edition, Vol. II). Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers Ltd. ISBN 0-88830-328-9
• Swenarchuk, Michelle. (2006) Introduction to The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map. Toronto: Between the Lines. ISBN 1-897071-18-3

Bibliography[link]

• Franklin, Ursula. (1984) Knowledge reconsidered : a feminist overview = Le savoir en question : vue d'ensemble féministe. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women. ISBN 978-0-919653-44-3
• Franklin, Ursula. (1985) Will women change technology or will technology change women?. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women. ISBN 978-0-919653-09-2
• Franklin, Ursula. (1992) The Real World of Technology. (CBC Massey lectures series.) Concord, ON: House of Anansi Press Limited. ISBN 0-88784-531-2
• Franklin, Ursula. (1996) Every Tool Shapes the Task: Communities and the Information Highway (Discussion Series #5). Vancouver, BC: Lazara Press. ISBN 0-902999-30-1
• Franklin, Ursula. (2006) The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map. Toronto: Between the Lines Books. ISBN 1-897071-18-3

Further reading[link]

• Beniger, James R. (1986) The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-16986-7
• Boulding, Kenneth E. (1969) The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. OCLC 298988
• Ellul, Jacques. (1981) Perspectives on Our Age. Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. ISBN 0-88794-095-1
• Ellul, Jacques. (1980) The Technological System. New York: The Continuum Publishing Corporation. ISBN 0-8264-9007-4
• Giedion, Siegfried. (1969) Mechanization Takes Command: A Contribution to Anonymous History. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc. OCLC 2356796
• Grant, George. (1969) Technology and Empire: Perspectives on North America. Toronto: House of Anansi Press Limited. ISBN 0-88784-605-X
• Grant, George. (1986) Technology and Justice. Toronto: House of Anansi Press Limited. ISBN 0-88784-152-X
• Jacobs, Jane. (1992) Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-394-55079-X
• Menzies, Heather. (1989). Fast Forward and Out of Control: How Technology is Changing Your Life. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada. ISBN 0-7715-9910-2
• Menzies, Heather. (1996) Whose Brave New World? The Information Highway and the New Economy. Toronto: Between the Lines. ISBN 1-896357-02-4
• Mumford, Lewis. (1934) Technics and Civilization. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co. OCLC 560667
• Mumford, Lewis. (1967) The Myth of the Machine: Technics and Human Development. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. OCLC 424751
• Noble, David F. (1995) Progress Without People: New Technology, Unemployment and the Message of Resistance. Toronto: Between the Lines. ISBN 1-896357-00-8
• Polanyi, Karl. (1957) The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston: Beacon Press. OCLC 173165
• Postman, Neil. (1993) Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-74540-8
• Rose, Ellen. Speaking Truth to Power in New Brunswick: A Review-Essay of the Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map. Antigonish Review, # 151, p. 119. October 1, 2007. ISSN 0003-5661
• Schumacher, E. F. (1974) Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered. London: ABACUS ed. ISBN 0-349-13137-6
• Shiva, Vandana. (1993) Monocultures of the Mind: Perspectives on Biodiversity and Biotechnology. London and New Jersey: Zed Books Limited. ISBN 1-85649-218-4

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ursula Franklin

• Pearson Medal of Peace - Dr. Ursula M. Franklin
• The Ursula Franklin Reader
• science.ca: Ursula Franklin profile
• Order of Canada citation

Christopher Hitchens
Hitchens speaking in 2007
Born	Christopher Eric Hitchens (1949-04-13)13 April 1949 Portsmouth, England
Died	15 December 2011(2011-12-15) (aged 62) Houston, Texas
Occupation	Writer, journalist, public speaker
Nationality	English American
Citizenship	British and American
Alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford
Subjects	Politics, religion, history, biography, literature
Spouse(s)	Eleni Meleagrou (m. 1981-1989; divorced) Carol Blue (m. 1989-2011; his death)
Relative(s)	Peter Hitchens (brother)
Influences George Orwell,[1] Leszek Kolakowski, Voltaire, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, George Eliot, Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, John Stuart Mill, Joseph Heller, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Edward Said, Salman Rushdie, Vladimir Nabokov, Richard Llewellyn, Aldous Huxley, PG Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Richard Hofstadter, Paul Mark Scott, James Fenton, James Joyce, Albert Camus, Oscar Wilde, Conor Cruise O'Brien, Martin Amis, Kingsley Amis, Ian McEwan, Colm Tóibín, Bertrand Russell, Wilfred Owen, Israel Shahak,[2] Isaiah Berlin, Émile Zola, W. H. Auden, Susan Sontag[3]
Influenced Johann Hari,[4] Martin Amis,[5]
Signature

Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an English American^[6][7] author and journalist whose career spanned more than four decades.^[8] Hitchens, often referred to colloquially as "Hitch",^[9] was a columnist and literary critic for New Statesman, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Mirror, The Times Literary Supplement and Vanity Fair. He was an author of twelve books and five collections of essays. As a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits, he was a prominent public intellectual, and his confrontational style of debate made him both a lauded and controversial figure.

Hitchens was known for his admiration of George Orwell, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, as well as for his excoriating critiques of various public figures including Mother Teresa, Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger and Diana, Princess of Wales. Although he supported the Falklands War, his key split from the established political left began in 1989 after what he called the "tepid reaction" of the Western left to the Rushdie Affair. The September 11 attacks strengthened his internationalist embrace of an interventionist foreign policy, and his vociferous criticism of what he called "fascism with an Islamic face." His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, although Hitchens insisted he was not "a conservative of any kind", and his friend Ian McEwan describes him as representing the anti-totalitarian left.^[10][11]

A noted critic of religion and a self described "antitheist", he said that a person "could be an atheist and wish that belief in god were correct", but that "an antitheist, a term I'm trying to get into circulation, is someone who is relieved that there's no evidence for such an assertion."^[12] According to Hitchens, the concept of a god or a supreme being is a totalitarian belief that destroys individual freedom, and that free expression and scientific discovery should replace religion as a means of teaching ethics and defining human civilization. His 2007 book, God Is Not Great, sold over 500,000 copies.

On 15 December 2011, Hitchens died from pneumonia, a complication of his cancer, in the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. A popular figure, his death prompted tributes and eulogies from a range of public figures, including Tony Blair, Richard Dawkins, Martin Amis, James Fenton, Nick Clegg, Stephen Fry and Bill Maher.

Life and career[link]

Early life and education[link]

His mother, Yvonne Jean (née Hickman), and father, Eric Ernest Hitchens (1909–1987), met in Scotland while both were serving in the Royal Navy during World War II.^[13] Yvonne was at the time a "Wren" (a member of the Women's Royal Naval Service),^[14] and Eric a "purse-lipped and silent" commander, whose ship HMS Jamaica helped sink Nazi Germany's battleship Scharnhorst in the Battle of the North Cape.^[3] His father's naval career required the family to move a number of times from base to base throughout Britain and its dependencies, including in Malta, where Christopher's brother Peter was born in Sliema in 1951.