Peace Movements and Pacifism after September 11
Peace Movements and Pacifism after September 11 Edited by
Shin Chiba ...
34 downloads
1088 Views
877KB Size
Report
This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form
Peace Movements and Pacifism after September 11
Peace Movements and Pacifism after September 11 Edited by
Shin Chiba International Christian University, Japan
Thomas J. Schoenbaum International Christian University, Japan and The George Washington University, USA
Edward Elgar Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA
© Shin Chiba and Thomas J. Schoenbaum 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Edward Elgar Publishing Limited The Lypiatts 15 Lansdown Road Cheltenham Glos GL50 2JA UK Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. William Pratt House 9 Dewey Court Northampton Massachusetts 01060 USA A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Peace movements and pacifism after September 11 / [edited by] Shin Chiba, Thomas J. Schoenbaum. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Peace movements—History—21st century. 2. Iraq War, 2003—Protest movements. I. Chiba, Shin, 1949- II. Schoenbaum, Thomas J. JZ5574 P44 2008 303.66—dc22 2007050566
ISBN 978 1 84720 667 1 Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall
Contents vii ix xiii
List of contributors Preface Acknowledgments PART I 1 2 3 4
Peace issues in the ‘post-9/11’ world Yoshikazu Sakamoto War and peace in an age of terror and state terrorism Richard Falk Searching for peace in a world of terrorism and state terrorism Johan Galtung Diaspora, empire, resistance: peace and the subaltern as rupture(s) and repetition(s) Lester Edwin J. Ruiz
PART II 5
6 7
8
PEACE AND WAR AFTER SEPTEMBER 11 3 19 32
49
PACIFISM, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION
Kant and anti-war pacifism: the political theory of the post-9/11 world Osamu Kitamura Christian pacifism after 9/11: A Mennonite perspective Atsuhiro Katano The problem of peace and world order in an Islamic context: the case of modern Japan Norio Suzuki On constitutional pacifism in post-war Japan: its theoretical meanings Shin Chiba
77 97
111
128
PART III TOWARD PEACE DIPLOMACY, PACIFISM, AND PEACE MOVEMENTS TODAY 9
Upon what principles should foreign policy be based in the 21st century? Thomas J. Schoenbaum v
155
vi
10
11 12
Contents
Foreign policy pragmatism and peace movement moralism: can the gap be bridged—or tertium non datur? Johan Galtung Globalization and the 21st-century US peace movement T.V. Reed A peaceful superpower: the movement against war in Iraq David Cortright
Index
173 183 201
227
Contributors Shin Chiba Professor of Political Thought at the International Christian University, Japan. David Cortright Research Fellow at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame and President of the Fourth Freedom Forum, USA. Richard Falk Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. Johan Galtung Founder and Co-director at TRANSCEND (Peace and Development Network), Spain. Atsuhiro Katano Lecturer of International Politics and Peace Studies at Rakuno Gakuen University, Japan. Osamu Kitamura Research Fellow of International Politics at the Institute of Politics and Economics and Lecturer at Kanto Gakuin University, Japan. T.V. Reed Professor of American Studies and Director of the Center of American Studies at Washington State University, USA. Lester Edwin J. Ruiz Vice President for Academic Affairs, Academic Dean and Professor of Theology at New York Theological Seminary, USA. Yoshikazu Sakamoto Professor Emeritus of International Politics at the University of Tokyo and Advisor for the Peace Research Institute of the International Christian University, Japan. Thomas J. Schoenbaum Professor of Graduate Studies at the International Christian University, Japan and Visiting Research Professor at The George Washington University, USA. Norio Suzuki Professor of Political Thought and Islamic Studies at Aichi University, Japan.
vii
Preface Shin Chiba and Thomas J. Schoenbaum International Christian University (ICU) is a small liberal arts university located in the western suburb of Tokyo, Japan. In 1949 ICU was founded as the ‘university of tomorrow’ for bringing forth young men and women as makers and workers for reconciliation and world peace. The firm resolution of the people of Japan and the world not to repeat the folly of waging war led to the founding of the university of reconciliation and world peace right after the World War II. It was built in the midst of the ashes and broken remains in the desolate Tokyo suburb. The founding of ICU can be rightly understood as the symbol of reconciliation between the United States and Japan, as many churches and individual Christians in the United States together with a number of ordinary people in Japan had donated and cooperated to create this university of tomorrow. Thus, the COE (21st Century Center of Excellence) Program in the field of multidisciplinary peace research has not only constituted the very integral core of education and research at ICU but has also been its raison d’être since the founding of the university. We call ICU’s COE Program, ‘Research and Education for Peace, Security and Kyosei (Conviviality),’ ‘comprehensive peace studies.’ This is an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary program that comprises many different themes and projects including narrowly defined peace research, Anzengaku (a Japanese project of security/safety studies launched by our COE Program leader, Yoichiro Murakami), international relations, international cooperation, international development education, gender studies, ecology, sustainable business administration and forestry, and intercultural communication. ‘Comprehensive peace studies’ also include studies in the ‘safe space’ in the human mind (clinical psychology), peace and kyosei education, peacebuilding and conflict resolutions, the issue of war responsibility and reconciliation in East Asia, stable and cooperative international order, studies in peace movements and pacifism, STS (science, technology, and society). Our ‘comprehensive peace studies’ program is not merely comprehensive in its broad range of disciplinary and thematic coverage. It also hopes to provide a consistent, creative, and relevant ‘grand design’ of peace, security, and kyosei in the increasingly fragmented and destabilized world at the threshold of the 21st century. ix
x
Preface
In sharp contrast to a general worldwide hope for the inauguration of a peaceful new century, the beginning of the 21st century turned out to be a period of horrifying experiences—of disasters and nightmares. The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 shocked the world, and were a sign that Hannah Arendt’s description of the 20th century as ‘the century of wars and revolutions’ might be equally applicable to the new century. September 11 was soon followed by the United States’s attack on Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. Under the leadership of the neoconservatives within the Bush administration, an ‘anti-terrorist war’ was launched against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in March 2003. And at this time (November 2007) unrest still prevails in Iraq—with ongoing conflicts between foreign forces and native forces, and among tribal and religious groups. The September 11 terrorist attacks—and the wars that followed—have inaugurated a period in which the ambiguous role of politicized and ideological religions (or of quasi-religions) has become manifest. Religions in their authentic manifestations are believed to play an important role in creating world peace. But we have witnessed the spread of distorted and politicized religions in some parts of the world. On the one hand, Islamic fundamentalism appears to have provided an emotional and ideological impetus for the September 11 attacks on the perceived symbols of an imperial United States: the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the White House. On the other hand, the United States’s Protestant fundamentalism seems to have offered an emotional and ideological justification for the Bush administration’s neo-conservative, unilateral, and bellicose policies. Faced with this unexpected and tragic situation at the threshold of the 21st century, a number of important questions are of pressing interest. For example, did the tragedy of September 11 really become a decisive watershed event that triggered the inauguration of a 21st century ridden by violence and war? If so, in what sense did September 11 become the watershed event? What are the key causes and factors—whether historical, socioeconomical, or cultural—that explain the emergence and spread of terrorism on a global scale? What is the nature and meaning of terms like counter-terrorist wars and state terrorism? What could explain the Bush administration’s crucial ideological turn to a neo-imperialistic, unilateral, and hegemonic stance in world politics? What are the most important peace issues in the current world today—because of, in spite of, or regardless of September 11? At the normative and advocacy level as well, we are faced with some difficult fundamental questions. For example, what alternatives should be pursued for peace diplomacy to flourish, and for a foreign policy based on peace-oriented constitutional and international law to be implemented?
Preface
xi
What will be an effective means of conflict resolution and peacebuilding in an age of global terrorism and state terrorism? In order for traditional peace theories—that is, theories of peace and resistance, of peace and antiwar movements, and of pacifism—to serve effectively and creatively, what kinds of philosophical or theological epistemological changes should we seek? What practical transformations must be sought and implemented? We should also explore such questions as these: Are there any debates within Christianity and within Islam about the relationship between war and religious faith? How should one look at ideas like holy war, or just war, or humanitarian intervention in the current world situation? Did the events of September 11 change the nature of Christian peace movements and pacifism? After the 1999 Seattle incident have we seen an emergence of a new type of peace movement and pacifism? What is the relationship between the traditional Christian pacifism of the so-called historical peace churches (such as the Mennonites, the Quakers, the Brethren) and the global peace and justice movements that we witness around the world in the wake of Iraq War? And can a new theoretical orientation be added to traditional pacifist doctrines? Where can we find seeds of hope for realizing world peace today? To be sure, the chapters in this book cannot deal with all these pressing and important questions. However, the authors have tried to address some of these questions, directly or indirectly. The editors sincerely hope that readers will find good and thoughtful materials in this volume—materials that will help readers to reflect further on today’s issues of peace and war. *** The authors of this book are a representative mix of eminent, established figures and promising younger scholars, and their fields of specialization are spread as diverse as peace research, international law and politics, political theory, sociology, social movement, peace movement, philosophy, and theology. Contributors include prominent scholars like Johan Galtung, Yoshikazu Sakamoto, and Richard Falk. The original papers of most of the chapters came from a series of international symposia and lectures, organized by the COE Program of the International Christian University (ICU), Tokyo. This multi-year series was called ‘Peace Movements and Pacifism after September 11,’ and participating authors were invited to deliver papers at lectures and symposia between 2003 and 2007. The editors hope that this book will arouse a new interest in peace studies, and that it will facilitate fruitful discussion of the theoretical and practical tasks that the world must face in order to build new pathways to world peace.
Acknowledgments The editors of this volume would like to express their gratitude to those who provided help and support for this project. We feel greatly indebted to the Japanese Ministry of Education and Science for its research grant, and we are grateful to the International Christian University (ICU) and numerous individuals for their generous support and encouragement. This volume is one outcome of the continuing multidisciplinary peace research program at the International Christian University (ICU) in Tokyo, Japan. The university received a research grant from the 21st Century Center of Excellence (COE) Program (of the Japanese Ministry of Education and Science) under the title ‘Research and Education for Peace, Security, and Kyosei (Conviviality).’ The goal of this program is to develop the field of ‘comprehensive peace studies’ and to serve as a center of excellence or hub for peace studies and education in Japan, East Asia, and throughout the world. The editors of this volume would like to express their deepest gratitude to the International Christian University, Tokyo—and especially to former university president Masakichi Kinukawa, to current university president Norihiko Suzuki, and to the university’s COE Program leader Yoichiro Murakami. All of these individuals have provided continuous support and leadership for the university’s COE Program. This book is the outcome of one COE project. Between 2003 and 2007, COE organized a series of international symposia and public lectures entitled ‘Peace Movements and Pacifism after September 11.’ The authors of this volume wrote papers and presentations for these occasions, and these works have finally become the chapters of this book. The editors are deeply grateful to the authors of the chapters for their willing cooperation and their commitment to our book project. Furthermore, we would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Alice Davenport, Ernst Schwintzer, and Patricia Cohn who assisted in the English editing with their marvelous expertise. Finally, the editors would like to thank the Edward Elgar Publishing Company and editors Tara Gorvine and David Fairclough for their generosity and superb editorial work. Without these precious helping hands and the goodwill of these individuals, this book would never have been published. Last but not least, the editors of this volume would like to acknowledge and thank David Cortright and the Fourth Freedom Forum for permission xiii
xiv
Acknowledgments
to reprint portions of David Cortright’s book, A Peaceful Superpower: The Movement against the War in Iraq (Fourth Freedom Forum, 2004). David Cortright’s introduction and first and second chapters are reprinted here as Chapter 12. We are deeply grateful for this generosity and goodwill.
PART I
Peace and war after September 11
1.
Peace issues in the ‘post-9/11’ world Yoshikazu Sakamoto
I
THE MEANING OF ‘9/11’
The title of my chapter originally suggested by Professor Shin Chiba was ‘The nature of peace and war after September 11.’ As you can see, I put quotes around ‘Post-9/11,’ because I am not convinced that 9/11 is a watershed in contemporary history as represented by the cliché that ‘9/11 has changed the world.’ Of course, the destruction of the World Trade Center, which killed approximately 3000 people was a horrible incident that continued to frighten me every time I saw the pictures on television. It was truly what we should call a humanitarian disaster. Yet, I do not think 9/11 changed the world. What it changed is the way the Americans see the world. It was a change in the American perception of the world, not a change of the realities of the world. I say this for two reasons. First, there was a series of terrorist acts against the United States prior to September 11, 2001: ● ● ●
●
●
●
In 1983, the Marine Barracks in Beirut were attacked by suicide bombers who killed 241 American servicemen. In 1984, the US Embassy annex in Lebanon was bombed and 22 people, including Americans, died. In 1986, the bombing of a Berlin discotheque killed two US servicemen and injured 230 people, including more than 50 American servicemen. In 1988, a Pan Am flight, traveling from London to New York, was destroyed by a bomb near Lockerbie, Scotland, and 259 passengers were killed. In 1993, the first bombing of the World Trade Center was carried out by a group of militant Islamists in the Center’s underground parking lot: six people were killed and approximately 1000 were injured. In 1998, the US Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, was blown up, with 214 people killed including 12 Americans; and the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, was bombed, with ten people killed. 3
4
Peace and war after September 11 ●
In the year 2000, the US Navy destroyer USS Cole, equipped with the Aegis guided missile system, was bombed while harboring in the port of Aden, Yemen: 17 US sailors were killed.
These were major anti-American bombing attacks, which took place prior to September 11, 2001. But few Americans said at the time that this chain of violent attacks against the United States was a symptom of a historic transformation already under way—a transformation that would ‘change the world.’ It was only in hindsight, that many Americans began saying that ‘the world has changed since 9/11.’ In reality, it seems to me that the Iranian revolution in 1979 is of more critical importance than 9/11 as the beginning of a new era of mass-based Islamic resistance to Western imperial domination, although long-term positive political achievements of the Islamic revolution have yet to be seen. Apart from the Iranian revolution, the asymmetric war waged by militant armed Islamists ‘to change the world’ in opposition to US global hegemony had been going on for at least two decades before 9/11. It was only when the US homeland was bombed—when Americans saw the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and learned of an aborted attack on the White House itself—that the American perception of the world changed, in the belief that the world itself had changed. Up to that point, the anti-American attacks had been considered relatively peripheral, though serious. In this sense, the view that characterizes 9/11 as a world historic benchmark is quite US-centric. And because this American perception has been amplified by a US-centric world media network that is dominated by American companies like CNN, the rest of the world also tended to fall victim to the delusion that ‘the world itself changed’ as a result of 9/11. I am not saying that the world did not change after 9/11. It did change— but not so much because the world itself had changed, as because the American perception of the world had changed, and because the US Government had acted in accordance with, and through the further manipulation of, the changed popular perception. One result was the American ‘war on terror’ waged not only in Afghanistan (and later in Iraq) but also within American society itself. In fact, this was not a new phenomenon. In the course of the intensification of the Cold War in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the United States faced the threat of what was called ‘world communism,’ the equivalent of today’s ‘worldwide terrorism.’ Communists were perceived to have infiltrated US government agencies, particularly the State Department, as well as Hollywood, universities, and labor unions. Communists and invisible crypto-communists must be exposed, interrogated, and expelled: that
Peace issues in the ‘post-9/11’ world
5
was McCarthyism, an equivalent of the ‘neo-con’ operation under the George W. Bush administration. Another precedent for the ‘war on terror’ is the ‘counter-insurgency policy’ formally adopted by the Kennedy administration to win the Cold War in the South (i.e., in developing countries). Counter-insurgency measures were intended to suppress and exterminate the forces of antiimperial, anti-colonial struggle and guerilla warfare that were regarded as subservient to world communism and to the Soviet Union, a nation that the United States treated as the world’s worst ‘rogue state.’ The ‘search and destroy’ operations conducted by American troops against the Communist Viet Cong were examples of this: these search and destroy missions can be seen as an equivalent of the operational tactics of today’s ‘special force’ in Iraq and Afghanistan, whose mission is to ‘capture or kill them.’ I have no intention to de-emphasize the importance of the tragic consequences of 9/11. What I am suggesting in a critical manner is that we should look at 9/11 also from the longer historical perspective of Islamic societies, which have felt themselves pushed to the world’s periphery over the centuries as they experienced hegemonic dominance by Western powers. In the 21st century, the United States is just seen as the most prominent of these hegemonic powers. In addition to the series of anti-American bombings I mentioned above, 9/11 is distinct as it took a much heavier toll (nearly 3000 lives) than any of the previous incidents. In particular, this makes a sharp contrast with the relatively small-scale first World Trade Center bombing in 1993; and it is natural that the furious American people should perceive 9/11 as a ‘worldchanging’ incident, ushering in a new era in world history. Nevertheless, I must raise some questions in terms of the magnitude of casualties. For example, did the people of the United States (or the people of Japan, which is a loyal ally of the United States) take the genocide of 800 000 people in Rwanda as an incident that ‘changed the world?’ Do Americans feel now that the massive death of 200 000 people in Darfur is an incident that will or should change the reactions of the world? How many innocent civilians must be killed—not in the United States, but in Africa, Afghanistan, or Iraq—before these tragedies are perceived by the US-centric American or Japanese people as a watershed in the history of the world? Let me repeat that I was horrified by 9/11, not only as a frightening ‘global media happening’ (Kaldor, 2003, p. 149), which repeatedly presented a series of dramatic, eschatological pictures, but also as a serious crime against humanity. But I must point out that 9/11 would not have ‘changed the world’ if this tragedy had not been perceived by Americans as
6
Peace and war after September 11
a world-changing event, and if the United States, as the world’s only superpower, had not reacted by declaring a ‘war on terror’ (a war that, in the words of President Bush, is a war against the ‘invisible enemy’ with no end in sight). Since no nation in the world can ignore the United States, a drastic change in the US stand is bound to have global ramifications. But it is one thing for us to recognize the reality of the US-centric structure of the world. It is quite another for us to accept the US-centric perception of the world. This is because the awareness of the US-centric structure can lead to the acknowledgment of the emergence of anti-hegemonic forces and thereby revise the US-centric view, putting the United States in a more relativist or multilateralist perspective in terms of historical and moral discourses. I would, therefore, like to identify the major peace issues we must tackle in the so-called ‘post-9/11’ world, using a perspective of longer historical development and wider global context, and taking up three challenges that have crucial political implications for the peace of our times. They are international/internal militarization, inhumane economic development, and the eco-political crisis.
II
CHALLENGE OF GLOBAL/SOCIAL MILITARIZATION
As a result of the unilateralist, hegemonic tendency of the United States that led to the quagmire in Iraq, a US-centric world political structure has become increasingly difficult to sustain, and a more pluralistic multipolar world is likely to emerge. It will not be exactly multipolar because the primacy of US hegemony will remain. But as the acronym BRIC indicates, countries such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China will begin to play the role of major powers, comparable to the EU and Japan, constituting a quasimultipolarity that the United States cannot ignore. This will not be a return to the classic sovereign state system and will not be an anarchical international system like the Hobbesian state of nature. But there is no doubt that it will give rise to a highly competitive and even combative situation where the game of tough bargaining and calculated realpolitik will be the order of the day. The modern state system is based on the principle of the equality of state sovereignty, but it is characterized by fundamental inequality at two levels. First, in the absence of a universal legal norm like the medieval divine or natural law that was supposed to transcend the authority of kings and princes, international security and order were to be maintained, not by the
Peace issues in the ‘post-9/11’ world
7
rule of universal law but by the rule of coercive power, called balance of power. Apart from the fact that the insecure dynamics of this balance of power have given birth to a number of wars, this balance pertained only to the major powers, with weaker states being subjugated, partitioned, annexed, or colonized.1 Integration into this unequal, hierarchical dominance–dependence structure has been the essence of the history of a large number of powerless nations. This inequality takes a particularly blatant form in the area of military strategy where a big power can generate a threat to the sheer survival of smaller states. Thus, weaker states in the contemporary world are driven to justify a policy goal of ensuring a minimum equality in terms of national security and self-determination by possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMD), particularly nuclear weapons. In this sense, vertical nuclear proliferation as well as horizontal proliferation is a manifestation of the desire of weaker states to resist the unequal structure of the state system. It is a truism that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime embodies inequality between the nuclear ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’ And if equality of state sovereignty is to be fully implemented, either every nation should be entitled to join the nuclear club, or the present nuclear powers should take a bold step for nuclear disarmament.2 If the United States, the world’s biggest nuclear power, continues to refuse to reduce its nuclear arsenal— and if the country even refuses to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)—we cannot dismiss the warning made by Mohamed ElBaradei, Secretary General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), that there will be 20 to 30 countries with nuclear weapon technology in the near future (The Mainichi Shinbun, October 17, 2006). To counteract this nightmarish scenario, the United States is leading the development and the deployment of a missile defense system in possible flashpoints of the world. But this will trigger off the high-tech militarization of space, including high-altitude interception of an enemy’s ballistic missiles and military satellites.3 How to halt and reverse this global militarization, which is the military manifestation of the keen international competitiveness of today’s neoliberal world system, is one of the critical peace issues we have to cope with. Second, there is another crucial element of inequality embedded in the internal structure of the modern state. Of course, all states, including the pre-modern states, are hierarchical. Even the direct democracy of ancient Athens took the discrimination against slaves and women for granted. What makes the modern state unique is the fact that, while it is in practice a hierarchy based on unequal class differentiation, there has been an unmistakable trend toward establishing its legitimacy on the principle of the equal rights of human being. For J.-J. Rousseau, for example, human beings
8
Peace and war after September 11
are equal in the state of nature, that is, they are equal by nature, which means that inequality in society is essentially unnatural. According to the Declaration of Independence of the United States, human beings are created equal, endowed with inalienable rights, which include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen in France of 1789 proclaimed that the human being is born free, endowed with equal rights. It is true that there is always a gap between the principle and practice. For instance, it took a long period of struggle to make progress towards the equality of men and women, and complete equality has yet to be achieved. But precisely because there has been a gap between the legitimate goal of human equality and the practice of inequality, there has always been an awareness of tension between the power of the state and the rights of the people. This is true even in a democracy or, to put it more accurately, because of democracy, which is an ‘unfinished project.’ Today, we can no longer deal with the issue of democratization within the framework of the nation-state alone. In fact, vast social disparities are growing in every society throughout the world, due to the neo-liberal globalization of the capitalist market economy. However, before examining the socio-political implications of this increasing transnational disparity, we must refer to its military-strategic significance in terms of nuclear proliferation. In response to the nuclear test program of North Korea, the US Government has taken a strong stand against the emergence of another nuclear state. But the United States, which is unlikely to be exposed to the danger of direct nuclear attack on its homeland by North Korea, is concerned more about the danger of the transfer of nuclear weapons technology or nuclear bombs by North Korea to non-state actors, namely, terrorists. Apart from a lack of international consensus on the definition of the concept of ‘terrorism’ as distinct from ‘liberation struggle,’ the term ‘terrorism’ is used in an indiscriminating way in the United States. For instance, the term refers to the act of terrorism (i.e., killing a number of innocent people for a political purpose) that can be carried out by a single individual, as exemplified by the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building in 1995 when one person killed 168 people. As for ‘nuclear terrorism,’ however, such an act can hardly be perpetrated unless there are favorable social conditions that will facilitate funding, technical training, and networking of enablers. Underlying this collaborative plot is no doubt a collective indignation or resentment directed to the structured discrimination, humiliation, and alienation of the disadvantaged. This structure embodies a gross violation of the
Peace issues in the ‘post-9/11’ world
9
principle of the equal rights of human beings, and this violation is now under way globally, cutting across the boundaries of state or nationality. The occasional violent protests made by the second or third generation of immigrants entitled to British or French citizenship are cases in point. These are a reflection of social inequity and cultural marginalization as well as economic impoverishment. They in turn provide fertile soil for the internal militarization of society through the proliferation of WMDs (such as nuclear weapons) and small arms among transnational non-state actors. This gives rise to a counter-trend toward equipping police and intelligence agencies with increasingly sophisticated arms and techniques for pacification and surveillance against the ‘enemy within.’ Further, the line of distinction between the military and the police has been blurred, as illustrated by the proliferation of privatized army and private security corporations. This, then, is the second dimension of inequality inherent in the contemporary state system in the age of globalization. And the danger of nuclear proliferation at the non-state level and militarization within a society is another threat to peace with which we must cope today.
III
CHALLENGE OF ANTI-DEMOCRATIC GLOBALIZATION
The problem of global disparity is not confined to the issue of nuclear proliferation alone. Today, we see a new phase of the inequitable, global development that used to be called the widening gap between the North and the South. The term ‘North’ refers to those industrialized countries capable of producing and exporting manufactured goods, while the ‘South’ refers to countries that are confined to the production and export of primary goods on unfavorable terms of trade. The theory of ‘dependency’ in the 1960s and 1970s even asserted that, as long as the world remained capitalist, the development of the Northern center was bound to be coupled with the increasing underdevelopment of the Southern peripheries. This view had to be revised in the 1980s when the ‘Four Dragons’ (the previously underdeveloped Asian economies of South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong) achieved high economic growth through the capitalist mode of industrial accumulation. This model of the newly industrializing economies (NIEs) was shared by many countries in Asia and Latin America, mostly under the political regime called ‘authoritarian developmentalism.’ Although these countries have been industrialized, they generally remain within the international structural framework of the ‘vertical division of labor’ in their relationship to the North.
10
Peace and war after September 11
Toward the end of the 20th century, this structure began to change and an increasing number of countries, particularly Asian countries like China, India, and some ASEAN countries, attained a high level of economic growth, and began competing with Northern developed countries. These new competitors offered comparable productivity with lower labor costs and were successful not only in the area of traditional manufacturing but also in the newer IT industries. This promoted a massive transfer of the world’s capital to these newly competitive countries in the name of globalization. This is the first time in history that these peoples have acquired competitive modern technological and economic power vis-à-vis the former so-called ‘advanced countries’ in the North. This ongoing change in the world system has brought about significant consequences. One consequence is the growing conscious or subconscious anxiety and even fear on the part of these former ‘advanced countries’ as to the future power configuration of the world. For instance, the United States plans to deploy to the Czech Republic and Poland what it calls a ‘missile defense system,’ professedly directed against Iran’s possible future nuclear ballistic missile attacks. This policy is perceived by Russia as a threat to its national security, and has led to increased international tension. Some people even call this situation a ‘new cold war’ between Russia and the United States. A fear, similar to the apprehension of the United States and Israel vis-àvis Iran and the perceived restructuring of power relations, is quite apparent in Japan’s reaction to China’s rising economic and military power and to North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests. For the last 100 years, Japan took for granted that it was the only nation in Asia that succeeded in achieving modernization. The assumption was that Japan deserved unquestionable superiority in relation to China and Korea. What is now required of Japan is not only the recognition of a change in military or economic relations, but also a radical revision of Japan’s concept of its own status in East Asia. This is a painful conceptual and psychological reversal, which is illustrated today by the Japanese people’s emotional bashing of North Korea and irrational suspicion about China. More generally, one important economic and political consequence of this emergence of rapidly rising competitive powers in the former South is the high rate of structured unemployment or underemployment in the North. This has precipitated an increasing number of workers and disadvantaged people into the widening gap between rich and poor in the North, and has also thrown these people into a ruthless, keen competition with their counterpart in the rising newly rich South where the socio-economic disparity between rich and poor is also going from bad to worse. The
Peace issues in the ‘post-9/11’ world
11
workers in the North tend to be the losers in the global competition.4 Thus, the workers and disadvantaged of the world are openly disunited and fragmented. As a result, the world has become immensely undemocratic, not only in terms of the North–South gap, which still affects the poor in the South, but also in terms of the intensified marginalization of certain economic classes within the North: both of these factors weaken the power of democratic popular control in the North and South. Thus, how to halt this trend toward global inequity and inequality is a fundamental question we must tackle in order to create a democratic world order in opposition to the prevalence of transnational capitalist marketization. Another issue involved in the task of making democracy work beyond national boundaries is the question of how to ensure the accountability of the global media. We live in an information age. But it is the capitalist information age, in which an enormous amount of information, produced and disseminated by large, syndicated transnational corporations, is treated as a commodity to be sold to an anonymous mass of people in a consumer society. The world we live in is characterized by the commodification of information. This is a world where the prevailing rule is, ‘If not all salable goods are good, goods that are not salable are no good.’ War is no exception. Major global television networks produce war programs that are salable to the audience. Thus, the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1991 was repeatedly presented as the demonstration of the allegedly pinpoint strike of American cruise missiles making Baghdad shine against the dark sky (Cumings, 1992). In the Iraq War the camera-eye was from the beginning ‘embedded’ on the side of US troops with no real picture of what happened to the other side, especially those casualties categorized as ‘collateral damage.’ For instance, the massacre in the city of Fallujah, if shown on television, would have been terribly disquieting and thus unsalable to the American general public. The statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down on TV a number of times, as a symbol of the ‘democratic liberation’ of the Iraqi people by the United States. Perhaps excepting those Americans whose family members, relatives, and friends have been sent to Iraq, for many people around the world this war has become a virtual reality, and viewers in many other societies are ceasing to be as concerned about the human implications of the bloody conflict in Iraq. How many of us are interested in remembering how many Iraqis were killed today, yesterday, or the day before yesterday? The world is psychologically divided into a war zone and a peace zone, just as the disadvantaged people of the world are divided as a result of what may be called the privatization effect of today’s mass media, making people passive consumers of information rather than active citizens of democracies. And while these citizens continue to be divided, global media companies,
12
Peace and war after September 11
sponsored by transnational business oligarchies like Rupert Murdoch’s network, continue to treat information as a commodity.5 Thus, the peoples of the world may be moving towards what we might call a schizophrenic world view. On the one hand, in the globalized economy today, the masses of underprivileged people tend to become nationalistic and patriotic, facing the intense competition with their counterpart in other countries over the issue of job opportunities. On the other hand, in today’s globalized information society, masses of ordinary people around the world tend to become more privatized and denationalized as depoliticized passive consumers of an Americanized lifestyle and of a variety of ‘ethnic’ cultures they like. Thus, people around the world are not only alienated from each other but also face conflicts and self-alienations within themselves. Accordingly, there is no doubt that finding a way to redefine our own national and personal identities in order to make the world more democratic and cooperative is one of the most urgent issues we must deal with in today’s world.
IV CHALLENGE OF ECO-POLITICAL VICTIMIZATION Despite these divisive forces at work in today’s world, there was one area where we used to think that humankind would unquestionably share at least one common interest: that is, the environment. We thought that differences in ideology or nationality should and would vanish when it came to humankind’s relationship with nature. ‘Let’s be nice to the earth’ has been a catchphrase considered acceptable to all the people, whether they were liberal or conservative, were the governing elite or the governed, or were from Western countries or from other parts of the world. In 1972, the United Nations held its first world conference on the human environment, defining the environment as a ‘world problem,’ that is, a problem that affects humankind as a whole. However, the international controversy and rivalry over global warming has made it abundantly clear that humankind is not a single entity in relation to the natural environment. For instance, the United States (the country that emits the largest amount of greenhouse gas) refused to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. And China and India, which have both become immense polluters of the air, are reluctant to subject themselves to international regulations. China and India insist, on behalf of other developing countries, that the primary responsibility for global warming must be borne by the countries of the North. That is, the responsibility should be borne
Peace issues in the ‘post-9/11’ world
13
by countries that have been contributors to the greenhouse effect since the Industrial Revolution of the early 19th century. Until recently, the focus of international debate was on the dilemma in terms of the priority given to industrial development, on the one hand, and ecological balance, on the other. But in April 2007, thanks to Britain’s initiative, the issue of global warming and climate change were presented to the UN Security Council as a serious threat to the peace and security of the world. Currently, the international debate on the environment focuses on two broad issues. The first concerns the scarcity or even depletion of certain natural resources including marine resources as well as oil, natural gas, and rare metals indispensable for continuing industrial development. The prospect of a petroleum shortage has given rise to a market scramble for oil, and oil will increasingly be accessible primarily to those countries and people who can afford to pay the rising cost. Today’s keen competition for the acquisition of oil resources has important political implications, because this competition may turn into an international conflict, possibly even an armed conflict, among oil-consuming countries. Further, the increasing scarcity of petroleum will widen the worldwide gap between rich and poor by retarding the economic growth of those resource-poor countries that are still underdeveloped. An increasing oil shortage will also affect poor people around the world who cannot afford to use oil as fuel in their daily lives. This, in turn, will mean accelerating deforestation and desertification. Increasing disparity of wealth at both international and domestic levels will also bring about political instability and peacelessness at both levels. This danger will be illustrated by those ‘failed states’ that are internally divided, but that are also vulnerable to intervention from outside forces. Similarly, we see that the increasing use of ethanol to decrease gasoline consumption can lead to rising prices for soybeans, sugar, corn, and other grains that are used to make ethanol. This is already affecting the poor in Mexico because of the soaring price of corn imported from the United States. Further, it will even deprive poor people in tropical areas of cassava, which is their staple food. The same sort of problem exists in the diminishing supply of clean water resources. Due to industrialization and urbanization—both of which are major causes of water pollution—1 billion people lack adequate water supplies today. Water issues are likely to become a factor that threatens world peace in the future, as oil did in the past. In fact, according to the 2006 UNDP Human Development Report, diseases that result from a lack of clean water kill more people in sub-Saharan Africa (i.e., poor people and children), than war does. At the same time, while the world’s poor are
14
Peace and war after September 11
victims of a shortage of clean water, some business corporations in the North are profiting from the sale of bottled water, anticipating a future when clean water will become so precious that a bottled water company can earn greater profit than an oil company can. This is because they simply assume that clean water is absolutely more indispensable than oil for human survival. All these examples show that depletion of resources is not primarily a question of the conservation of nature as such. Rather, it is a question of social conflicts and political threats to peace that stem from an inequitable distribution and inhumane consumption of resources at the various levels of world society. Another category of social and political conflict in regard to the environment has to do with global warming. The change of climate (e.g., increased drought and irregular rainfall), together with an increase in world population, a decrease in world food production, a soaring price for farm products and livestock, will all aggravate global hunger, thus widening the gap between the rich and the poor. Further, the rise of global sea levels will give rise to a number of social and political conflicts. For instance, vast stretches of the world’s seacoasts will be submerged in water and a large number of people will be forced to abandon their homes and move inland. The migration of these environmental refugees, most likely in the form of dispossessed squatters, will affect every continent and every island. This migration will cause disputes, and even violent conflicts, with native or previously settled inhabitants over the use and ownership of land. Rich countries, such as Holland, can afford to build banks or levees to prevent the land’s submergence. Wealthy people around the world can afford to buy new real estate on higher ground. But in some large coastal areas such as the vast delta zone of Bangladesh, with its dense population of poor peasants and fishing families, the land’s submergence will give birth to a new problem: millions of homeless people, whose migration will inevitably intensify racial, ethnic, and religious tensions both within Bangladesh and in neighboring countries as well. The control, regulation, or expulsion of unwelcome immigrants will be enforced more strictly than before by the countries and peoples who refuse to admit those ecological refugees. The massive resettlement of displaced people may eventually result in calls for the legal redrawing of boundaries—of national territory, territorial waters, and maritime exclusive economic zones (EEZs)—all of which are in themselves highly sensitive political areas. And the sensitivity of these issues may increase the danger that these problems will be resolved by force of arms, in favor of powerful states and their governing elites.
Peace issues in the ‘post-9/11’ world
15
In short, it is the poor and powerless peoples of the world who will have to make the greatest sacrifices, bearing the brunt of global warming. The change of climate has critical implications in terms of social and political conflict, which generates a serious threat to the peace of the world.
V
HUMANITY AT STAKE
The development of science, technology, and the economy on a global scale is inevitable and, in many respects, necessary as long as it serves to make the world more humane and livable. But the three challenges discussed above must be faced squarely, in order to ensure the peace of the world now and in the future. First, this development must be demilitarized, halting and forestalling nuclear proliferation and terrorism, which are inevitable consequence of today’s unequal and inequitable structure of world power configuration. Second, this development must be an equitable and democratic one that promotes the solidarity and empowerment of marginalized groups. This will counteract the social fragmentation caused by the dominance of global capital over the world economy and media. Third, this development must be sustainable, in order to ensure an ecological symbiosis that implements a humane and peaceful socio-political coexistence and minimizes the eco-political victimization of disadvantaged groups. My message is simple. That is, underlying the conflict in these three dimensions exists the present global socio-political structure that disregards the fundamental equality of human beings. To transform this structure and to make the world more peaceful and humane, civil societies around the world will need to play a crucial role. The transformation of this structure cannot be accomplished by the state for several reasons. First, the state, being coercive and hierarchical, consists of an unequal structure, and this inequality is mirrored also in its relationship with other foreign states. You may recall the well-known Weberian definition that the state is an organization characterized by the legitimate monopoly of the means of violence. The state’s violence is directed inward toward its own people and outward toward other states. Second, the state is by nature parochial and limited in its scope, and the state system is not capable of adequately coping with broader issues like global inequality and inequity, global fragmentation through competition, and global environmental degradation, all of which are the sources of the critical threat to peace. Furthermore, it goes without saying that there is another powerful agent of today’s historic worldwide transformation, that is, global capital and transnational corporations. They have been eroding and, at times, transcending the limited competence of the state to meet the challenges of the age of globalization.
16
Peace and war after September 11
But it is precisely this capitalist global marketization that is aggravating the global problems discussed above. To counterbalance the power of the nation-state and global capital, and to make the world more peaceful, democratic, and humane, we need a strong and empowered transnational civil society. By ‘civil society,’ I refer to the dynamic, open-ended process of renovating social relations on the basis of a reciprocal recognition of the dignity and equality of all human beings regardless of race, religion, creed, or gender. In brief, it is a public space founded on the idea of ‘humanity.’ I put emphasis on the importance of the concept of humanity for a specific reason relevant to most of us who live in East Asia. This is because it seems to me that there is no precise equivalent of the idea of humanity in either the Japanese language and tradition, or, more broadly, in other East Asian languages and cultural traditions (Cf. Troeltsch, 1950; Rawls, 1998; Keane, 2003). It is true that there are approximations in Japanese, such as jinrui (humankind, human race), ningensei (human nature), or jindo (human morality). But these terms are not exactly the same as humanity, defined as a universal norm based on the idea of the social equality and equal rights of all human beings. Even the term jindo has often been used with paternalistic, Confucian connotations in defense of hierarchical social stability. The lack of sensibility that undermines the idea of ‘universal humanity’ is illustrated by the fact that, while Japanese government officials (and probably the majority of ordinary Japanese people) are self-righteous in denouncing North Korea for the abduction of Japanese compatriots, they do not feel that Japan was responsible for the abduction of Korean, Chinese, and other Asian workers and the so-called comfort women. This nationalist double-standard is a manifestation of the absence of a sensibility to universal humanity. We must be aware of, and on guard against, this flaw in the Japanese cultural tradition. At the same time, it is very encouraging to see today an exponential increase in the number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) almost everywhere in the world. These organizations are laying down and reinforcing the base for the development of a transnational civil society. Although some of these NGOs are of dubious character, many of them are not limited by nationality or ethnicity, and act on behalf of the whole of humanity. These organizations have played a critical role in overcoming the debt crisis of a number of African countries, in banning (or at least delegitimating) the use of anti-personnel land mines, and in alleviating hunger, malnutrition, disease, and poverty in developing countries and wartorn regions. But NGOs still have a long way to go in order to bring about peace and
Peace issues in the ‘post-9/11’ world
17
justice in the world—mainly because of two problems. One has to do with their tendency to act individually and separately and only come together for joint action on a temporary, ad hoc basis. Whether or not a global NGO project like the World Social Forum will, over time, successfully generate changes in an inequitable world structure will depend on whether the participating NGOs can organize in accordance with the principle of one single humanity. The other problem faced by NGOs is a widespread indifference on the part of the majority of people around the world. Indifference is more difficult to cope with than explicit opposition. A lack of interest in the painful predicament and tragic misfortune of other people (as long as these problems do not directly and adversely affect one’s personal or national interest) has always been a social obstacle that stands in the way of resolving the urgent problems of transnational political implications. This is especially true of today’s world, where even problems of life and death are transformed into commodified information that overflows the virtual reality in which many of us are immersed. Obviously, this is another manifestation of the wearing away of the sensibility to humanity. Let me conclude by quoting the words of Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in their joint manifesto issued in 1955: ‘We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent, or creed, but as human beings, members of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt.’ These two world figures issued this appeal on the occasion of the first series of hydrogen bomb tests, fearing that ‘if many H-bombs are used there will be universal death.’ Fortunately, we have survived the Cold War and the danger of a global nuclear war appears to have receded. But there are other challenges that endanger humankind as I have discussed above. And after more than half a century, I still feel I cannot readily deny the warning of these two great scholars that human beings’ ‘continued existence is in doubt.’ Let us hope that we can dispel this fear by thinking and acting as forward-looking members of transnational civil society in the cause of humanity.
NOTES 1. In the face of rising levels of Third World expectation, internation inequality was defended by Tucker (1977). 2. See the significant joint statement published in The Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007, by George P. Scultz et al., in which they urged that ‘reassertion of the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and practical measures toward achieving that goal would be, and
18
Peace and war after September 11
would be perceived as, a bold initiative consistent with America’s moral heritage.’ 3. The ruling coalition in Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito, will outline a bill to allow military use of space solely for purposes of defense. The LDP argued that the general recognition of international conventions concerning the limits of space use is not for ‘non-military’ but for ‘non-aggressive’ purposes, and so Japan should expand its space use accordingly. The Japan Times, June 13, 2007. 4. Four trends can be noticed: (1) large shifts from relatively well-paid employment in manufacturing to lower-paid employment in services as the US manufacturing base has shrunk; (2) deteriorating employment conditions for poorer American households, especially black and Hispanic, as minimum-wage jobs, sweatshops operating below the minimum wage, part-time employment, temporary employment, and just plain unemployment have all become more prevalent; (3) increases in non-wage income for rich people; stock options, bonuses, commissions, return from investment; (4) widening disparities in compensation within large firms (Tilly, 1988). 5. See The New York Times’ critical editorial, June 10, 2007 on his attempt to buy The Wall Street Journal.
REFERENCES Cumings, B. (1992), War and Television, London: Verso. Japan Times (June 13, 2007). Kaldor, M. (2003), Global Civil Society, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Keane, J. (2003), Global Civil Society?, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 175–209. Mainichi Shinbun (October 17, 2006). New York Times (June 10, 2007). Rawls, J. (1998), ‘Fifty Years after Hiroshima,’ in K. Bird and L. Lifschultz (eds) Hiroshima’s Shadow, Stony Creek, CT: The Pamphleteer’s Press, pp. 474–9. The Russell–Einstein Manifesto (issued in London, July 9, 1955), http://www. pugwash.org/about/manifesto.htm. Accessed January 21, 2008. Schultz, G.P., W.J., Perry, H.A. Kissinger, and S. Nunn (January 4, 2007), ‘A world free of nuclear weapons,’ Wall Street Journal: A15. Tilly, C. (1988), Durable Inequality, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, p. 231. Troeltsch, E. (1950), ‘The Ideas of Natural Law and Humanity in World Politics,’ in O. Gierke, Natural Law and the Theory of Society, 1500 to 1800, translated with an Introduction by Ernest Barker, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Appendix I, pp. 201–22. Tucker, R. (1977), The Inequality of Nations, New York: Basic Books.
2. War and peace in an age of terror and state terrorism Richard Falk I
INTRODUCTION
There are strong reasons to resist an interpretation of the current world situation that raises the violent interaction of states and non-states above all other concerns. And there are additional reasons to be reluctant to be content with labeling such interaction by the inflammatory terminology of ‘terror,’ ‘terrorist,’ and ‘terrorism.’ Since governments and the media are likely to continue to use this way of talking about their adversaries, it is at least as important to associate terrorism with political violence that targets civilians, independent of whether the actor is a non-state movement or a sovereign state. Such usage at least challenges the propagandistic allegations directed at any enemy of the state. After the ending of the Cold War, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, there occurred a decade of relative calm with respect to war and peace in the world. There were many bloody conflicts taking place, especially in formerly colonized countries, but little threat or concern about the outbreak of major wars between states, except possibly with respect to India and Pakistan. The new emphasis was on warfare within sovereign states, and the extent to which the UN and outside actors had a duty to intervene under certain conditions.1 This focus was superseded after the 9/11 attacks by a preoccupation with transnational organized political violence in which the principal actors were not normal states, as was the case for wars in the modern period. But now the ‘war’ was being carried on between a transnational network of dedicated extremists (Al Qaeda) and a global state that pursued its interests on a planetary scale. Despite the cautionary comments, it seems useful to explore the significance of this struggle between post-Westphalian actors in relation to the future of world order and with regard to global and human security.
19
20
Peace and war after September 11
II THE GLOBALIZATION OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE Let me begin this examination of the changing world order scene by acknowledging with some shame that my own early response to the September 11 attacks was to speak out in favor of the ‘war’ against Afghanistan, and more generally to endorse the war discourse adopted by the Bush presidency.2 At the time, it seemed that no government could or should ignore the threat posed by Al Qaeda, its ideology of indiscriminate violence and jihadist politics, as well as its demonstration of a capacity and will to mount an attack that inflicted severe symbolic and substantive harm on what had seemed, as late as September 10, to be the most secure and powerful state on the planet. No sovereign state would have dared launch such an attack against the United States, assuming that the response would be so devastating as to effectively end its existence as a political entity. In this sense, and perhaps in this sense alone, September 11 did signal the superseding of Westphalian warfare by something entirely different, and as yet still unnamable, and seemingly unmanageable, undermining the security of even the strongest states. In 2001 I supported a public position that initiating a war against Afghanistan was a ‘just war’ that could be validated by a flexible reading of international law. It was notable that the prospect of such a war disturbed neither the United Nations nor aroused an adverse public opinion. It appeared reasonable, and even necessary, to disrupt the leadership and destroy the headquarters of Al Qaeda in retaliation for its role, and with greater reason, to reduce the danger and size of future attacks. It also seemed reasonable to hold the Taliban regime at least indirectly responsible for the September 11 attacks, and to make regime change in Kabul a legitimate war goal for the United States. There were additional grounds to disregard the sovereign rights of Afghanistan: the oppressiveness of its Taliban government that was itself guilty of many crimes against humanity and the legally dubious political status of the regime in the world, the government then having diplomatic relations with only a single state, its neighbor, Pakistan, and then only for practical reasons of maintaining a communications link with the outside world. More than five years later I can hardly comprehend my earlier understanding of the issues, and stress this change of heart because I think it helps us realize why a renewed inquiry into ‘terrorism’ is both necessary partly because first reactions turned out to be so inadequate. Of course, even at the end of 2001 I began to have serious misgivings about how the Afghanistan War was waged, the disregard of civilian life, the over-reliance on air power, the vindictive mistreatment of captured personnel, and the
War and peace
21
general ineffectiveness of the military operations with respect to apprehending the Al Qaeda leadership and shattering its capabilities for further attack. It then also became clear that it was likely a huge mistake to regard counter-terrorism as a species of ‘war’ rather than as a particularly difficult ‘law and order’ challenge. This mistake was, perhaps, natural in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 due to the magnitude of the attacks that created an impact that for Americans was more like Pearl Harbor than any of the earlier terrorist incidents and given the Al Qaeda declaration of war against the United States. Nevertheless, especially given neoconservative influence on American foreign policy, the decision to go to war rather than to enforce law in the face of high-profile criminality has had a huge adverse impact. What most unsettled my initial views about responding to 9/11 was that it became increasingly clear that ‘the terrorist card,’ despite the official rhetoric of a ‘global war on terror’ was not even principally about ‘terrorism,’ or even about the rise of dangerous, extremist non-state actors targeting the United States and its citizens for violent annihilation. The counter-terrorist campaign was actually functioning as a gigantic public relations campaign mounted by the Bush presidency and designed to divert attention from the real undertaking: the full-scale pursuit of a grand strategy by the United States to achieve and sustain global dominance by military means, with an initial preoccupation about achieving hegemonic control over the Middle East, perhaps better designated in Japan as West Asia. To carry out such an ambitious and controversial foreign policy it was necessary to mobilize the American people to offer their children as potential war victims and to pay the high costs of embracing a risky imperial geopolitics. Neoconservative think tanks and leading reactionary voices in Washington had advocated this grand strategy of global domination ever since the end of the Cold War. But until the 9/11 attacks there was no rationale for such a foreign policy that would have been politically acceptable within the American setting, which at least ideologically was antiimperialist and pacific. When George W. Bush initiated the ‘great war on terror’ it was from the outset a mind game that was played with the sensible political reluctance of a democratic society to embark on a course of aggressive war-making, yet always more than ready to support wars of selfdefense with patriotic fury. In this sense, the war against Afghanistan seemed at the time to be an appropriate defensive response to the shock and fear and anger in America that accompanied the Al Qaeda attacks, and not the launch of a far broader and more dubious global strategy. In reality the Afghan War mainly functioned as a hyped prelude to the wider neoconservative campaign to shift the center of gravity of American foreign policy from Europe to the Middle East. Such an assessment seems highly persuasive in light of the American failure to complete the job of stabilizing
22
Peace and war after September 11
Afghanistan after the Taliban regime was toppled and the country occupied. There was an unseemly haste exhibited by the US government in immediately shifting its main ‘counter-terrorist’ energies to Iraq. The absence of any terrorist threat from that country and its weakness as a result of the Gulf War of 1991 and 12 subsequent years of punishing sanctions aroused widespread suspicions about the real goals of American foreign policy.3 For neoconservatives, 9/11 was the opportunity they had been waiting for. It was all the encouragement that was needed to lead the Bush leadership to take geopolitical advantage of the hitherto neglected opportunities provided by unipolarity. The collapse of the Soviet Union produced the historically unusual circumstance of a geopolitical vacuum, that is, the absence of any significant Westphalian countervailing forces confronting American global ambitions; to the extent that Al Qaeda and its surrogates opposed these ambitions it was from a post-Westphalian perspective signaling the rise of non-state actors. This broader agenda of American global policy represented a comprehensive interpretation of challenges and opportunities that involved several main areas of concern. In addition to taking favorable account of the geopolitical setting and responding to the challenge of extremist non-state actors, neoconservatives were concerned about the securing under American control the vast oil reserves of the Middle East, a rising priority given the growing energy squeeze. This neoconservative outlook was also particularly responsive to right-wing Israeli insecurities and ambitions, as well as exhibiting anxiety about a challenge to US dominance that could be mounted by China in the near future. Additionally, neoconservatives feared that some patterns of the proliferation of nuclear weapons could curb American freedom of maneuver, especially in the Third World, associated with unipolarity. This governmental mind game played for American support took various forms. Its initial emphasis was an insistence on expectations of unity (that is, the absence of criticism by citizens) given the existence of wartime conditions. Because this struggle did not seem like a normal war, the government needed to rely on the manipulation of fears, periodically making the terrorist threat seem far more menacing and immediate than it turned out to be. In the years after 9/11 the Bush presidency also made opportunistic use of a reawakened American patriotism that seemed ready and willing to suspend the most fundamental rights associated with a democratic society, turning a blind eye toward governmental abuse, especially when directed at Muslims. Most abusive were the policies directed at supposed terrorist suspects whose most fundamental rights were suspended. Anxieties rose that the United States was moving in authoritarian directions, its officials openly defending practices generally viewed as
War and peace
23
violating the international norm prohibiting torture. This disturbing encroachment on constitutional democracy in the name of counterterrorism became the essence of homeland security in the United States. But in this regard it is helpful to have some historical perspective. Matthew Carr expertly demonstrates in his fine book, The Infernal Machine: A History of Terrorism (2007), that such patterns of abusive, superfluous, and cruel counter-terrorism has been a consistent theme ever since the end of the 19th century when modern governments began to be faced with radical challenges mounted by extremist political groups who resorted to political violence to gain their ends. Particularly characteristic of past governmental responses has been a reliance on torture and a willingness to fabricate terrorist incidents so as to build a public relations case for claiming enhanced powers due to the existence of a national security emergency. What seems distinctive about the post-9/11 approach of the US government is its fusing of a turn toward domestic oppression with its moves toward foreign wars and imperial geopolitics. Against such a background it is hardly surprising that there has surfaced a tsunami of suspicion with respect to the seminal events of September 11. A growing grassroots movement has emerged that questions whether the official story that has been told about how and why September 11 happened is believable. Among those who have dared to consider gaps in the evidence carefully there are strong reasons to suspect that high officials in the US government at least deliberately refused to take precautionary steps in response to several highly reliable and rather specific warnings of an impending attack, and there lurks the possibility that some officials may have been complicit to a greater degree. David Griffin’s several books (2004; 2005; 2007) arguing this case cannot be easily disregarded as the ravings of a conspiracy theorist, although they have been to this point ignored in the mainstream media; Griffin is a philosopher of religion of worldwide reputation and impeccable scholarly credential, known especially for his work on the great British philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead. Griffin has devoted himself in recent years to a well-reasoned and abundantly documented exposure of the extraordinary tensions between the official version of what happened and the available evidence as what seems to have actually happened. Whatever the eventual historical unraveling of September 11, the response certainly demonstrates that the vulnerability of a democratic society may be greater from its own manipulative forces than it is from those who are feared as ‘evil’ and as ‘enemies.’ These anti-democratic domestic forces are often concealed in the deep recesses of governmental bureaucracy, and are ready to make common cause with their right-wing allies when opportunities exist, especially at times of national crisis.
24
Peace and war after September 11
These various concerns eroded my willingness to give the Bush presidency any further benefit of the doubt with respect to its war on terrorism, but what turned out to be decisive in changing my thinking was the build up toward the war against Iraq. Here, to me it was obvious that a war was being planned that could not be reconciled with international law and that intended to flout the authority of the United Nations. What is more it was a war that threatened great devastation and was fraught with dangerous unpredictability. The more sophisticated among the advocates of the Iraq War should have realized that its only convincing justification related to the geopolitical gains that would result from military victory (oil, Israeli security, strategic position, the demonstration effects of military victory) more than offsetting the unacknowledgeable costs likely to result from the anticipated intensification of anti-American terrorism. The Egyptian leader, Hosni Mubarak, emphasized the point when he said before the invasion of Iraq that such a war would give rise to 50 new Osama Bin Ladens. To summarize the argument: the so-called war on terror was never primarily about terrorism, except that the counter-terrorist narrative emboldened the government to abuse its opponents, including even its own citizens. It is a misleading concession to the geopolitical manipulators of 9/11 to consider this to be ‘an age of terrorism.’ A more illuminating orientation for the political imagination is ‘the age of global empire’ or a period that can be most saliently associated with the global state, globalization, religious resurgence, beyond Westphalia, human rights, and climate change. There are many plausible candidates for a defining characteristic of our time, but terrorism is not one of them, particularly if an observer is not entirely shaped by American perceptions of world order. In this, I agree with Professor Sakamoto in Chapter 1, but go somewhat further. It is not merely a matter of unwarranted deference to an American-centric view to treat 9/11 as the decisive rupture of our time that changed everything, it is also to fall prey to geopolitical propaganda designed to divert attention from the pursuit of a global dominance project, which cannot be directly admitted. Even if we temporarily suspend disbelief with respect to our doubts about September 11, and accept the view that the attacks should be perceived more or less as presented to the public, then what? As suggested, no government could ignore the challenge, but did it need to declare ‘war,’ and especially a war without a specific opponent, one to be waged worldwide against a form of behavior, that is, against ‘terror’? Why lump together the Al Qaeda vision of a transformed Islamic world with the various struggles of self-determination being waged in such diverse settings as Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya? In domestic settings, it would be a regressive misreading of political reality to treat all violent political adversaries as ‘terrorists’ who deserve to be exterminated or controlled. There is a notable
War and peace
25
difference between the IRA (Ireland), the Basque ETA and the FLN in Algeria and such visionary and sociopathic terrorists that challenge the nature of the social order itself as was the case with Aum Shinrikyo (Japan), the Red Army Faction (Germany), and the Red Brigades (Italy). Such an over-generalizing response by the US Government served well the geopolitical ambitions of the neoconservative presidency that orchestrated the response to September 11, but it was dysfunctional from the perspective of the genuine containment of the actual threat posed by Al Qaeda and its allies. It is instructive to compare the Spanish response to the Madrid train bombings of March 11, 2004 or even the British response to the London attacks of July 7, 2005. In both instances, the response was based on drawing a sharp distinction between ‘war’ and ‘terrorism.’ Terrorism, if the terminology can ever be constructively used at all given its many manipulative applications, should always be treated as justifying a law enforcement challenge, at worst, giving rise to a type of ‘crime against humanity’ that validates a major societal effort. In contrast the idea of war refers us to armed struggles by contending forces over territorial boundaries or political control, whether within or between states. Most serious and sustained instances of modern terrorism can be best comprehended as resistance to foreign occupation. This position has been empirically argued by Robert Pape in his recent book on suicide bombing, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (2006). In Spain the response to the train bombings was organized by reference to the main slogan used at mass public demonstrantions: ‘No to War, No to Terrorism.’ It led in Spain to the electoral repudiation of one of the few political leaderships in Europe that had sided with the United States in the Iraq War, and to the subsequent withdrawal of Spanish participation in the war. But it also produced a more vigilant police effort to protect Spanish society against subsequent attacks, which included the arrest of the perpetrators and their accomplices. A similar approach was followed in Britain, somewhat marred by some indications of police over-reactions, but generally keeping the cause of counterterrorism apart from the ill-considered willingness of the Blair government to become a junior partner of the United States in embarking upon the Iraq War. What seems clear, then, is that if counter-terrorism is the real goal, then two moves are vital: an acknowledgment of and attention to legitimate grievances that gave rise to extremist behavior and an enhanced effort to improve police capabilities to prevent terrorism and to foster police cooperation within and among states. In fact, Al Qaeda has been strengthened by the wars waged against it, while seriously weakened by the law enforcement breakthroughs that have dealt with extremist cells in various parts of the world and have apparently curtailed the capacity of such groups to
26
Peace and war after September 11
achieve tactical successes via violent acts. Increased societal vigilance seems to have made it more difficult to mount terrorist attacks.
III
THE RELEVANCE OF STATE TERROR
Turning from terrorism, anti-state political violence, to ‘state terrorism’ gives us another disturbing understanding of the deployment of violence by state actors against essentially innocent civilians, that is, civilians in the same sense that the hapless occupants of the Trade Center buildings on September 11 were innocent. The main dynamic of modern warfare consists of the constant, often frantic, effort to render technology and strategic doctrine ever more potent in their terroristic potential with respect to civilian populations. This became morbidly prominent in World War II when the Allied Powers fighting a just war relied on a self-proclaimed doctrine of ‘total war’ that featured repeated strategic bombing attacks on large cities designed to inflict maximum casualties on German and Japanese societies with the declared intent of so demoralizing the population as to encourage its rejection of the war effort. These tactics culminated in the atomic bombings at the end of the war justified by apologists then and since as ‘saving American lives’ by inducing a rapid Japanese surrender. During the Cold War this genocidal mentality that had come to shape the conduct of major Westphalian wars between leading states reached survival-threatening heights through the deployment of hundreds of nuclear weapons accompanied by doctrines of deterrent, a security regime labeled ‘mutual assured destruction,’ with the revealing acronym of MAD, and also known more descriptively as ‘the balance of terror.’ Against this declared willingness of leading states to rely on city-busting nuclear weapons the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, however horrifying, are trivial by comparison. As E.P. Thompson (1982), the late distinguished British social historian and peace movement leader and theorist, influentially explained, any culture that reveals a willingness to rely on genocidal policies for its security thereby undermines its own moral credibility even if the threat is never carried out. Such a state certainly has forfeited its anti-terrorist credentials, or any claim to serve as the arbiter of ‘civilization,’ itself is a contested reality in view of the historical Eurocentric story of acting as the vehicle of civilization. For the colonialist antecedents of state terrorism see the searing account of European policies in Africa that are so vividly recounted by Sven Lindquist (2007) in ‘Exterminate All the Brutes:’ One Man’s Odyssey Into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide.
War and peace
27
It is ominously instructive that the widespread reliance by military personnel and intelligence officers on coercive interrogation techniques, that is, torture, since September 11, has similarly been publicly justified by President Bush in his notorious speech of September 6, 2006, or more recently by the former director of the CIA, George Tenet, in his defense of the agency, as necessary ‘to save American lives.’ This deep and presumably unconscious, and certainly unacknowledged, moral depravity and lawlessness associated with the deliberative mass sacrifice of innocent lives for the sake of political ends has been characteristic of Western war-fighting for centuries, and continues to taint all gestures to bring collective violence within the discipline of law. Returning to the post-September 11 framing of terrorism and state terror, it is worth observing that President Bush often accused the terrorists of waging a war against civilization, and as thereby being the embodiment of evil. But what is it that is being labeled ‘civilization’ except a governmental actor that has a shameful record of engaging in state terrorism on a scale that dwarfs any undertaking by ‘the terrorists,’ that is, the political violence of non-state actors. There are many manifestations of state terrorism in this current period, but perhaps the most emblematic, was the ‘shock and awe’ tactics used to initiate the unprovoked aggressive war against Iraq in 2003, lighting up the sky over Baghdad with a massive and undoubtedly terrifying display of high-technology military ordinance. Over and over again in the Iraq War, the United States has relied upon overwhelming displays of high-technology firepower to make Iraq cities such as Falluja uninhabitable, inflicting massive casualties on a helpless civilian population that had been promised liberation not subjugation and horror, prompting many Iraqis with the means to flee the country forever. Having established the rather level moral playing field as between nonstate and state terror, a less violent future can be imagined even if cannot now be anticipated. It is encouraging that neither form of terroristic violence can any longer attain their political goals at all, or at acceptable costs. Purely visionary projects, whether overturning a major established society or ruling the world, require a purely enforcement-oriented response as was developed to cope with urban terrorism of the 1970s and 1980s. In contrast, violent movements that seek to address legitimate grievances, struggles for self-determination, or against oppressive rule, normally depend for settlement upon mediation and non-violent forms of conflict resolution, converting the terrorists of yesterday into the political leaders of today. Consider, for instance, the dramatic upgrading of such diverse figures as Nelson Mandela, Yasir Arafat, and Gerry Adams. It only delays political accommodations, often at great human and societal costs on both sides, to deny the existence of legitimate grievances. How many Palestinians and
28
Peace and war after September 11
Israelis will have to die and suffer before political leaders reach an accord that affirms and implements the Palestinian right of self-determination more or less in accordance with the green line that existed before the 1967 War? How many Catholics and Protestants endured bloodshed and acute insecurity before the conflict was shifted from paramilitary theaters of combat to political arenas of negotiation and accommodation? We cannot know whether the Al Qaeda challenge is purely visionary, in the mode of Aum Shinrikyo, or at least partly instrumental, seeking the removal of certain legitimate grievances. But we know that fighting terror with state terror feeds the fires of violence and extreme resentment with escalating effects on the overall scale of death and destruction. We also know that there are well-founded legitimate grievances in the Islamic world directed against the West, but especially the United States. It seems clear that reinforcing Israeli oppressive and exploitative policies toward the Palestinians and Arab neighboring states has generated a deep sense of humiliation and anger among the Arab masses in these societies. It also is evident that years of sanctions imposed on the Iraqi population after the First Gulf War, between 1991 and 2003, caused hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths. This experience reinforced the general perception of the West, and especially of the United States, as a cruel oppressor of Arab peoples. Furthermore, the huge American military presence in the region undoubtedly acts as a reminder of the colonial past, and its substantial removal could alone signal a respect for the independence of the countries in West Asia.
IV
CONCLUSIONS
In concluding, I would say that war has been widely discredited as a counter-terrorist response, both on grounds of propriety and effectiveness, but that elites and their publics have not begun to perceive this fundamental shift in political realities. It is also abundantly clear that from the perspective of civilian values, that the state terrorism associated with counter-terrorism and one-sided warfare, is by far the greatest cause of harm throughout human history. Finally, a state that seeks to defend itself should regard the rule of law as its first and main line of defense, and limit its reach overseas by reliance on cooperative police enforcement procedures, complemented by the new options offered by international criminal law, especially the International Criminal Court. Beyond this, self-scrutiny to the extent of resolving legitimate grievance in an equitable manner might be the optimal response to most forms of non-state political violence, at least providing an approach of first resort.
War and peace
29
I would also make a second observation that relates to the blurring of the boundaries between peace and war, a process that had characterized the hairtrigger alert realities of the Cold War epoch, but is now associated with the interplay of terror and counter-terror. Intrusive violence or unanticipated detention can occur anywhere, at anytime, without prior warning. Such violence against the person can be generated either by the state in its suppressive mode, holding anyone under suspicion in detention indefinitely, or it can result from non-state actors dedicated to the omega point of suicide to kill as many people as possible and to frighten everyone in a targeted society. There is a heightened awareness of risk everywhere, often opportunistically intensified by government propaganda, making it impossible to evaluate the degree of risk with any confidence.4 This post-September 11 atmosphere is well-depicted in Ian McEwan’s (2005) insightful novel, Saturday. Toward its end, writing in the setting of London on February 15, 2003, the day of the great anti-war demonstration that preceded the Iraq War, the main character ponders this pervasive mixture of certainty and uncertainty that makes the moment so perplexing: ‘Beware the utopianists, zealous men certain of the path to the ideal social order. Here they are again, totalitarian in different form, still scattered and weak, but growing, and angry, and thirsty for another mass killing. A hundred years to resolve. But this may be an indulgence, an idle, overblown fantasy, a night-thought about a passing disturbance that time and good sense will settle and rearrange’ (p. 286). Of course, such reflections themselves exhibit the anxieties of the privileged accustomed to the security that well-governed states have provided between its wars, but there are existentially traumatizing anxieties of those caught between these two sets of antagonistic forces, swept up frighteningly by arbitrary government dragnets or annihilated by the desperate tactics of the darkly alienated. We have no way of knowing whether it will be possible, or even desirable, to restore Westphalian normalcy to modern societies or to establish new forms of post-Westphalian, postmodern security that recreate the possibility of reasonable levels of societal security. Unfortunately at this moment it requires a utopian sensibility to anticipate a hopeful future, but still our sense of human dignity depends on thinking and acting as if such a future is possible. This discussion of terror and state terror should not exhaust our concerns about war and peace in the early 21st century. Despite the rise of non-state actors, both from below in the form of insurrectionary challenges and from above in the form of imperial geopolitics, there are other serious issues that deserve our attention. These include the existence of a nuclear weapons arsenal of some 27 000 nuclear warheads, 3500 of which are on hair-trigger alert. Any accident or pathological initiative could instantly overshadow the sorts of concerns that have dominated the political imagination in the West
30
Peace and war after September 11
since 9/11. And then, it is more than a fanciful possibility, that miscalculations or extremism could lead to devastating wars as between Pakistan and India, North Korea and South Korea and Japan, China and the United States. That is, although Westphalian war, that is, between territorial states, seems to be receding, serious dangers and uncertainties remain, and most state actors are arming themselves, some at great expense. The United States is wasting its wealth by over-investing in this obsolescent Westphalian war machine, and depriving itself and the world of a much more prudent distribution of expenditures, including on improving the environment, reducing world poverty and disease, and renewing its own societal infrastructure. In the end, our future prospects depend on appreciating the character of new security challenges while remaining prudently attentive to the sorts of unresolved tensions that often led to wars in the past.
NOTES 1. For an illuminating assessment of this shift of emphasis from inter-state warfare see Kaldor (1999). 2. These views were initially expressed in several articles appearing in The Nation in the weeks following September 11, 2001, and then more fully elaborated in my book The Great Terror War (Falk, 2003). 3. See sanctions chapter in Falk (2007). 4. See generally, the pre-9/11 emphasis on the centrality of risk in modern society in the work of Beck (1992; 1999); also Beck, Giddens, and Lash (1994); also relevant is Runciman (2006).
REFERENCES Beck, U. (1992), Risk Society: Toward a New Modernity, Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Beck, U. (1999), World Risk Society, Cambridge, UK: Polity. Beck, U., A. Giddens, and S. Lash (1994), Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Carr, M. (2007), The Infernal Machine: A History of Terrorism, New York: The New Press. Falk, R. (2003), The Great Terror War, Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press. Falk, R. (2007), The Costs of War, New York: Routledge. Griffin, D.R. (2004), The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11, Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press. Griffin, D.R. (2005), 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press. Griffin, D.R. (2007), Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory, Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press.
War and peace
31
Kaldor, M. (1999), New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Lindquist, S. (2007), ‘Exterminate all the Brutes’: One Man’s Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide, New York: The New Press. McEwan, I. (2005), Saturday, New York: Random House. Pape, R. (2006), Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, New York: The New Press. Runciman, D. (2006), The Politics of Good Intentions: History, Fear, and Hypocrisy in the New World Order, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Thompson, E.P. (1982), ‘Notes on Exterminism: The Last Stage of Civilisation’, in E.P. Thompson (ed.), Beyond the Cold War: A New Approach to the Arms Race and Nuclear Annihilation, New York: Pantheon, pp. 41–79.
3. Searching for peace in a world of terrorism and state terrorism Johan Galtung I
INTRODUCTION
Let me make one thing clear from the beginning. My position on peace and war, peace theory and practice, is less based on pacifism as a moral position than on pacifism as a politics of peace and war. This is spelt out in the Introduction of my book, Peace By Peaceful Means (1996), which discusses concrete applications of political/military/economic/cultural power as soft politics for the 21st century. An eightfold path is indicated, using the four forms of power both for negative and for positive peace. The position is basically pragmatic: violence, with all its bloodshed is counterproductive or at best non-productive, like leeches with their hosts. Lately I have been, within the framework of TRANSCEND (Peace and Development Network), very concerned with conflict transformation (Galtung, 2004) as the way to prevent avoidable violence and suffering— somewhat similar to primary and secondary prophylaxis as the way to prevent illness—but also, particularly as positive peace with its focus on joint projects, as a way for humankind to move forward; just like for positive health. No doubt this is a valuable approach. My preferred formulation, however, is to look at conflict transformation in Buddhist terms: that is, reduce dukkha (suffering) and increase sukha (fulfillment). This is applicable to all, including our individual selves. I see security theory and practice as an approach that is focused on ourselves, that is, as an egoistic position based on a ‘strength’ that generates the same response in others (like people’s war against elite war) and becomes counterproductive. This approach is both politically unwise and also incompatible with a rapidly globalizing world. More about that later.
32
Searching for peace
33
II IS CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION BY PEACEFUL MEANS POSSIBLE? To address this question, my concern will be with the relation between ‘individual terrorism’ and ‘state terrorism.’ And my answer to the question will be ‘yes’—not merely based on educated proposal-making, but on a comparative study contrasting the security approach of Bush’s United States and Blair’s United Kingdom, with the peace approach of Zapatero’s Spain.1 The point of departure for this discussion is the atrocious series of acts, committed on September 11, 2001, against the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington (‘9/11’ in the US system); also the July 7 attacks in the subway of London (called ‘07/07’ in the UK); ‘11-M’ (i.e., ‘once M’ or once-de-marzo), on the trains in Madrid on March 11, 2004; and some other events. The key word above is ‘relation.’ It zeros in on looking for the root cause of violence—itself certainly a relation—in the relation between perpetrator and victim, past and present. That is, not only focusing on inside one or the other actor, particularly the perpetrator, as has often been the case. Could there be material in that relation that also explains the violence? Like a past or present filled with unresolved conflict and violence, and a desire for revanche—a new deal—and for revenge? Could the act of violence be a part of an enduring vicious cycle of retaliation? Or, is it sufficient to look for the root cause of violence in the actors— particularly the perpetrator? See youth-Arab-Muslim, but read: unemployed, from Arab states short on political and economic development, but long on Islamic fundamentalism. That could be complemented by a view of the victims as adult-Western-Christian, while reading: well-to-do, from Western democracies at high levels of political and economic development, and moderate religious beliefs. Why should the former commit such atrocities against the latter? Because comparisons make them envious of everything that the others have that they themselves do not have—jobs, freedom, wealth—and then they use religious rhetoric to justify the violence. Looking at the gap between themselves and the others, the perpetrators feel frustrated, and that frustration translates into aggression. Or, the perpetrators do evil, simply because they are evil. This actor-oriented thinking activates—and is activated by—a general security discourse that sees acts of violence as evil deeds committed by evil people because they are evil. The way out is to deter or crush these evil people, and to obtain security—from them. However, if we incline toward relation-oriented thinking we will feel correspondingly at home in a general peace discourse that sees violence in terms of unresolved, festering conflict. In this view, the only way of
34
Peace and war after September 11
preventing violence is to solve, or at least transform, the conflict relation in order to obtain peace. Or at least to obtain peace with that particular actor. For conflict is itself a relation between at least two actors (unless it is a conflict inside one actor), and at the root of the relation is the incompatibility of at least some goals of these actors: ‘I want this, you want that, they exclude each other, so we are on a collision course, you and I.’ The relation perspective, and the peace discourse, are both reciprocal: ‘I and you share the responsibility for whatever went wrong, it is up to both of us to improve the relation.’ The actor perspective and the security discourse, however, are autistic, putting all the blame on the perpetrator. If he or she does not change his or her manners he or she must be forced to do so by being brought to justice by outside forces. The assertion of this chapter is that we need both approaches, but rather than a 90 percent actor-oriented/security approach and a 10 percent relation-oriented/peace approach, we need the proportions the other way around. More precisely, in terms of the terrorist situations we are considering here, there are six conflicts to be settled and six tasks to be done. Of these six tasks, Spain under José-Luis Zapatero has done work on four, the United States under George Bush on zero and the United Kingdom under Tony Blair on zero. From that follows a prediction: It is unlikely that there will be more Arab-Islamic attacks in Spain but it is likely that there will be more in the United States and the United Kingdom. Unless somebody wants to falsify this prediction. The mode of discourse matters, and the actor-oriented/security mode is now the most prominent type of discourse among leading nations. The type of discourse that is chosen influences the outcome. And vice versa: the desired outcome influences the discourse choice. A simple cost–benefit analysis underlies that choice, for top level political decisionmakers are already biased in favor of the security discourse by Western political theory and practice. In their view, the peace discourse with mediation, conciliation, and dialogue may remove the causes of violence. But this huge benefit comes with a cost: acknowledging that the onus may be on both parties, that is, that the victim has also committed wrongs, and that the victim is now paying for these wrongs. The security discourse mode does not incur this cost, for security discourse finds the cause for violence in the perpetrator. But there is another price to pay in using security discourse: continued, escalating violence, depending on the capacity to mobilize violence resources on both sides. In the old days the more modern actor had the advantage of capital-, technology-, and management-intensive warfare in clashes between warriors; in postmodern warfare against civilians that advantage is rapidly
Searching for peace
35
dwindling. But a war may also be waged for political/economic/military goals beyond crushing a perpetrator. In the United States and United Kingdom, terrorist incidents (i.e., 9/11 and 07/07) the security discourse dominated, as usual. But in Spain it did not. The question of why will be explored later, but first let us take a look at the conflicts. Conflicts may unfold as violence, in space (the arena of the conflict) and in time (the drama of the conflict). Dividing space into here (United States, United Kingdom, Spain) and there (Arab countries), and time into now (the present) and then (the past) we get this typology:
Now
Then
Here 9/11, 07/07, 11-M Integration problems Empty: colonialism came to Arabs not vice versa
There General: Iraq, Israel–Palestine Special for Spain: Ceuta–Melilla War and mediation problems Colonial traumas: 1945, 1916, 1925 Conciliation problems
III THE COMPLEX RELATION: CHRISTIANITY/THE WEST AND ISLAM And underlying it all is the complex relation of Christianity/the West with Islam, with one obvious implication: problems of dialogue between civilizations. We notice the empty cell. We see that the events with dates are not only recent, that is, ‘now.’ There were older colonial traumas ‘there’ and ‘then.’ All violence ‘then’ was ‘there.’ But something new has happened: major violence is now ‘here.’ Changing the arena changes the drama. Using this model, a first approach would be to look for the causes of major acts of violence here and now exactly in the ‘here and now.’ The umbrella term for that approach is integration, with a focus on the immigrants from former and present Arab dependencies, looking at their mode of life and how these immigrants (and the imams) educate and socialize their children and their youth. This is much less relevant for the United States, but very relevant for the United Kingdom and Spain. The second approach would be to look for causes of violence in the present, ‘now,’ but to look ‘there’ for these causes. The cases of Iraq and Israel–Palestine immediately come to mind, whether or not any of the actors think or talk in these specific terms. Western powers are involved in these two conflicts, but specific to Spain is the issue of Ceuta–Melilla (two Spanish enclaves on the Northern coast of Morocco).
36
Peace and war after September 11
There may be two separate approaches required here: that is, stopping the war and with it the killing, and also using mediation to solve the general conflicts shared by Western powers as well as special country-specific conflicts. The third approach is to focus on ‘then and there,’ that is, to focus on history and geography, by looking at colonialism—including direct colonialism through occupation, and indirect colonialism through the support of West-oriented repressive regimes. Colonialism is usually accompanied by very traumatic events, like: ●
●
●
1916 The Sykes/Picot treason—that is, the UK/French foreign ministers who promised freedom to the Arabs if they rose up against the Ottoman Empire. The Arabs did rise up, but were colonized. The United Kingdom took Palestine and Iraq; and France colonized Syria and Lebanon. In 1922 Palestine was divided into CisJordania and Transjordania (later Jordan). And in 1948, Palestine was divided into Israel and Palestine. Following these events in 1916, came the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and in 1918 the end of the Ottoman Empire. 1925 French planes flown by US pilots and financed by Spain were ordered by General Francisco Franco to bomb Xauen/Morocco. Many civilians were killed. Italy started bombing civilians in 1911 in Libya; then the United Kingdom bombed civilians in Iraq in 1922. 1945 The treaty between the United States/Roosevelt and Saudi Arabia/Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud gave the United States the right to exploit the oil resources and the duty to protect the Royal House against its own Wahhab people.
History ‘there’ shapes the future ‘here’; to neglect history shows a lack of realism. Just ask the people ‘there’ what matters to them. But the impact of an event ‘here’ is clouded by a phenomenon that is almost a law of nature: the perpetrators of violence forget; the victims never. Conflicts can unfold not only across space but can also be asynchronic, unfolding across time. In perpetrator countries such dates become topics for historians to research, and for experts to quote. But in victim countries gruesome or humiliating events are kept alive by schools and temples, by epics and songs, and of course through political rhetoric, like Bin Laden’s famous statement: ‘You are now suffering the humiliation that we were suffering more than eighty years ago.’ In other words, 2001 (80‘more’) 1916, 1917 (Balfour Declaration, 1917 providing a Jewish home on Palestine). The issues fade away for the perpetrator, but the victim can easily retrieve the memory at any time and place. When the victim presents the bill for
Searching for peace
37
misdeeds that have been buried in perpetrator aphasia, the bill reads like fundamentalist fanaticism—like greed rather than grievance, and like paranoia fueled by hatred. In short, victim demands can look like something that should trigger a heavy security approach. Underlying it all, actually fitting into all four cells in our model, is a deeper explanatory factor: the relation between Christianity (and the West in general) and Islam. If Islam is seen as Christianity without a Christology, then there is a clear contradiction of dogmas. But if the two are seen as different approaches to existential problems faced by fragile humanity, then there is a basis for mutual respect and curiosity about each other—leading to dialogue on equal terms and to an exploration of political, economic, and educational issues. As was the case in Madrid on October 28, 2005.
IV
SIX PROBLEMS, SIX TASKS
From these explorations of specific conflicts flow the six problems and the six tasks that have to be addressed: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
integration: problems between immigrants/host country; army withdrawal from the arena, or from offensive action (cessation of war); general mediation: ongoing general conflicts between Western and Arab countries; special mediation: ongoing special conflicts between Western and Arab countries; conciliation: for colonialism with its traumatic events; dialogue: between civilizations/relations between religions.
Rather than elaborating on the low performance of the United States and the United Kingdom in the reciprocal peace approach (though they ranked high in their autistic security approach), let us look at what Spain did, and did not, do: 1.
Integration Zapatero legitimized more than 1 million illegal immigrants on the condition that they could prove employment—the biggest group being Ecuadorians (almost 0.5 million), followed closely by Moroccans. All colonial countries—including Spain and the United Kingdom—posed as self-appointed mother countries, that is as model countries to be emulated. A risky position. Even if the struggles for independence of a colonized country are ‘only’ the revolts of puberty, any benevolent mother has a responsibility for all her children. This
38
2.
3. 4.
5. 6.
Peace and war after September 11
also applies to the United States—a case where the imperialism was mainly non-colonial, but where the country nevertheless posed as a model for the whole world. Army withdrawal Zapatero complied with his promise right after his election victory on March 14, 2004: the Spanish army was withdrawn from Iraq, eliminating any mutual killing as a factor in the conflict. Mediation with Iraq, Israel–Palestine No actions, or at least nothing known. Negotiation between Spain and Morocco Zapatero’s first visit abroad was to Rabat, to meet with King Mohammed VI. All issues were definitely addressed—including Ceuta–Melilla. One possible solution might be similar to the Hong Kong colonial resolution: one flag down, another up, one garrison out, another in. The rest would remain as it was. (Incidentally, this might also be a possible solution for Gibraltar.) Conciliation for colonialism/trauma No actions known. Dialogue among civilizations/religions On October 28, 2005, working through Fundación Atman, Zapatero and Turkish Prime Minister Erdog˘an organized the first West–Islam dialogue in Madrid. I was a participant in this event, and I can testify to the high level of the dialogue on the three issues of politics, economics, and education. The consensus was against state religion and in favor of respectfully teaching all religions. There will be general and specific follow-up dialogues to this 2005 meeting.
A brilliant record, marked by two characteristics of the Zapatero approach: action rather than rhetoric, and action at a speed that makes the opposition speechless (though angry). Four out of six. But on the minus side, Zapatero (like Schröder and Chirac) did not come forth with proposals about possible solutions in the Middle East—for example, a Helsinkistyle Conference for Security and Cooperation in the Middle East. Or like the Israel–Jordan Conference on Security and Cooperation in the Middle East (CSCME), that is, a conference outside the UN (to avoid major power vetoes) that aimed at consensus. And also on the minus side for Zapatero, past colonialism/trauma has remained unprocessed. What could be four feasible implications of this for the United Kingdom? With regard to integration, the problem is not so much illegal immigration (as in Spain), or unemployment (as in France), as it is integration of immigrants into the United Kingdom’s agenda-setting, opinionproduction and policy-making. The security approach followed by the UK calls for police surveillance and for demands that imams (and UK Muslims in general) make clear declarations against violence in general and against the violence of 07/07 in particular. There is something to be said for this
Searching for peace
39
approach, particularly if the tainted UK police could also come forth with similar pledges. But the alternative peace approach opens the process up for something more promising. The process now involves debate, free and public, about all issues, from ‘now and here’ via ‘now and there’ to ‘then and there.’ In a country that places freedom of expression high on the agenda this should be easy. With respect to the situations in Iraq and Israel–Palestine, the United Kingdom should stop killing and torture and start negotiations in a CSCME-type setting. And as for past conflicts/traumas, the United Kingdom should appoint a Royal Commission on 1916–17 and its consequences, ensuring the participation of both UK and Arab historians, and sending a helpful signal in a conflict that is maybe 95 percent rooted in history and 5 percent in religion. Blair would have been better off if he had turned to historians instead of imams after 07/07. The history of this conflict started years ago—not on 9/11, 07/07, or 11-M. And with regard to dialogue between Christianity and Islam in the United Kingdom, let 1000 public dialogues blossom. To move to a global perspective, today Islam is a prominent religion from Casablanca to Mindanao, in 56 independent countries, and among some very substantial minorities (as in India and the Philippines). These countries include 22 Arab countries, counting Palestine. Almost all the borders between these Islamic countries, often suspiciously linear, were drawn by the West as a part of a colonialism that hit all the countries, even if they were not directly colonized. Of course Muslims in general, and Arabs in particular, do not respect these borders. Arab countries dream of Arab unity, and dream that the ‘C’ in the OIC (the Organization of the Islamic Conference) will change its meaning from Conference to Countries to Community. Given the historical forces at work—motivation being the key force—both dreams will likely be realized one day. In this Islamic community, there is pent-up anger against traumas inflicted by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Australia, traumas that predict more violence in the ‘now and here.’ France had much fighting with the National Liberation Front of Algeria (FLN) on its own soil. France may have to pay for the 1945 massacre, for the 1954–62 war and for its support of FLN against the Algerian majority. Italy may have to pay for its past actions in Libya. And Australia? The country has paid something already, ‘there’ being the Sari night club in Bali, catering to Australian males with Indonesian girls on a predominantly Hindu island, where Hinduism has Buddhist elements and is practiced in an Islamic context. Bali was also a hunting ground for Australian pedophiles. If OIL is written over 1945, POWER over 1916–17 and 1925, then SEX stands for the 2003 night club atrocity.
40
Peace and war after September 11
In general, the West is now paying for the Iran 1953 deposition, by the American CIA and the British MI6, of the democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh. Real apologies to Iran by the United States and the United Kingdom would carry us a long way toward solving the ‘nuclear crisis.’ But this will all get much worse. Unless, that is, a miracle should happen: that the United States/United Kingdom, like Spain, choose rationality, mediation, and conciliation, rather than an escalation of violence.
V ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO PEACE AND WAR (STATE AND NON-STATE) The world underwent no basic or real change on September 11, 2001. The loss of lives and material damage was high, a full 1 percent of the losses suffered by the Vietnamese under Western aggression. But the perceptual change was considerable. The colonial West had grown used to one-way wars, bringing death to others, but not upon their own lands. These were arenas for major power ‘world wars’ with military forces attacking military forces (war); but these have also been arenas for military forces to attack civilians (state terrorism), like the Anglo-American bombing of Germany during World War II. Guerrilla activities (civilians attacking military forces) like the Spanish resistance against Napoleon, have been well known in history. But civilians attacking civilians is new, so the major powers needed a new term to set it apart, stamp it out, crush it: terrorism. All of these types of violence are clear outcomes of social and military dialectics. The interests of an elite and of ordinary people may not coincide: one group may go to war or may capitulate when the other group prefers not to do so. Wars tend to escalate; the military prefer to kill civilians because they think civilians cannot retaliate. In fact, civilians can, and do, retaliate: ‘people’s war.’ Some alternatives available to states are not likely to be of much avail: 1.
2.
3.
In bellum laws are efforts to de-escalate, or not to escalate, using the principle of ‘proportionality.’ However, this may also protract the war (like a slow conflagration will protract the duration of a fire) if nothing is done to transform the underlying conflict. Ad bello rules for just war may be used to legitimize war—for instance, through recourse to the principle of proportionality as an acceptable reason for action. Humanitarian intervention is easily used to legitimate war, the problem is whether the actors’ stress is on ‘humanitarian’ or on ‘intervention.’ There is definitely legitimacy to a protection of distressed peoples, but
Searching for peace
4.
5.
41
this protective action has to be followed by efforts to address root causes. Ensuring human security and human rights may protect distressed people, but does not remove the causes for the distress. To remove obstacles to the satisfaction of individual people is good, but the real issue may be that there are actors who prefer human insecurity and who prefer rights infractions. The goals of these actors have to be understood, too. Like the typical US ‘sink or swim,’ it is up to the individual whether he or she makes it or not, not up to some human security or human rights agency. In other words, we need to bring the human security and human rights discourse inside a conflict discourse, to see better what the basic conflict is about, and then to approach the conflict in terms of mapping, legitimation, and bridging (transcendence). Or we can compromise. Or struggle if it is a clear case of legitimate versus illegitimate state power. The security/rights discourse obscures reality by drawing a veil over contradictions; it is better to be conscious and realistic—but not to be a ‘realist’ who believes only in force. The usual discussion of basic needs defines violence as the negation of these needs, which is useful, but which also obscures contradictory aspects of social reality.
Transforming conflict goes to the root of the problem; and in so doing, these five approaches may all be helpful. Medical analogies are useful here, with personal and social hygiene as the homologues. Let us then have a look at a group that emerged early in the last century (though with forerunners in the high Middle Ages): that is, non-state actors working for peace. As we will see in the discussion below, there are three clear generations of such approaches. To better understand these approaches, it may be useful to apply a definition for peace as the ability to handle conflict, with empathy, nonviolence and creativity (since so much violence is due to the mishandling of conflict). And it may be useful to define conflict as Attitudes Behavior Contradiction (an ABC triangle). At the root of the conflict is the contradiction, the incompatible goals. Hateful/apathetic attitudes and behavior often come later, with the three factors (the contradiction, the attitudes, and the behavior) all stimulating each other. After some time the conflict/violence process crystallizes, and polarizes around friend/self and foe/other, the former surrounded by increasingly positive and the latter by increasingly negative attitudes and behavior. Friend- and foe-images become megalomaniac and paranoid; the process makes it impossible to include any negative qualities in the former or
42
Peace and war after September 11
positive qualities in the latter. We can talk about social pathologies bordering on collective psychoses the way we classify individuals with similar traits. Rationality evaporates. Deeply rooted cultural attitudes, with grotesque ready-made polarization, takes over. At this point, violence, sometimes even mass destruction, is not far away. The Cold War was a case of this ABC dynamic till forces in civil society had a sobering, depolarizing effect on the conflict. We can see other examples in conflicts in and around Yugoslavia, in the Middle East in general, and in problems raised by terrorism/state terrorism. We can use the ABC triangle to identify deep attitudes, deep behavior and deep contradictions, assuming that these factors steer, or at least influence, the surface level of the incompatible goals that reflect what people say they feel or think, and that influence how they act and behave. Here deep would mean ‘subconscious, hidden, under the surface’; not ‘profound.’ We can identify the attitudes, behavior, and contradictions with deep culture, basic human needs, and deep structure, the latter referring to the fault-lines in the human social construction (gender, class, etc.) A range of peace approaches has evolved through actors trying to change all six factors: that is, changing the attitudes, the behavior, and the contradictions both at the surface level and deeper down. So we have three generations of peace approaches: ●
First generation of peace approaches, till World War II: A-oriented: peace movements—meeting, advocating, demonstrating; B-oriented: war abolition—eliminating war as social institution; C-oriented: global governance—globalizing conflict transformation. These three approaches were related, with people expressing themselves through peace movements, with governments searching for regional and global harmonization, and with movements for war abolition through the mechanisms of democracy, human rights, and regimes. The motto for this generation: ‘Peace is too important to leave to the generals.’
●
Second generation of peace approaches, after World War II: A-oriented: peace education/journalism—for knowledge/information; B-oriented: non-violence—to be able to struggle, but non-violently; C-oriented: conflict transformation—solving conflicts creatively. The three are also related, and they evolve from the first generation of peace approaches. People start doubting that peace ranks high among the interests pursued by governments. Ordinary citizens
Searching for peace
43
doubt the capability of states, as they watch the governments stumble at the brink of the nuclear abyss throughout the Cold War. People start demanding education and research for peace—and inspired by Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Mandela and Tutu, they turn out into the streets to struggle for peace. Patterns emerge of people’s nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that begin using their own diplomacy to solve conflicts, rather than waiting for governments. The motto for this generation: ‘Peace is too important to leave to the states.’ ●
Third generation of peace approaches, after the Cold War: A-oriented: peace cultures—going into deep cultures if needed; B-oriented: basic human needs—accepted as non-negotiable pillars; C-oriented: peace structures—repairing fault-lines along gender divisions, class divisions and so on. A search for the foundations for peace is below the surface, generalizing Freud-Jung (needs and culture) and Marx (needs and structure). The motto for the third generation: ‘Peace is too important for shallow approaches.’
The first generation reacted against war. People demanded peace through a type of governmental cooperation that would occur above nations and states. The second generation reacted against governments. People became increasingly skeptical of governments and wanted to work for peace themselves. The third generation reacted against simplistic approaches, realizing the deep roots of peace development, also understating the importance of satisfying basic human needs. Conflicts have life cycles, or phases. Violence outbreak and ceasefire define five other approaches in three phases that are used by the United Nations: ● ● ●
Phase I: before violence—peacemaking (conflict transformation), peacebuilding; Phase II: during violence—peacekeeping, peace zones; Phase III: after violence—reconciliation (with reconstruction).
The problem with this UN approach is that the parties often try the phases in the opposite order: this changes reconciliation to pacification; changes peacekeeping from ceasefire monitoring to peace enforcement; and makes peacebuilding illusory. Peacemaking has to precede or accompany all the other phases.
44
Peace and war after September 11
Nevertheless, this approach opens up a possibility for cooperation of non-state actors with states. Non-state actors do not contest a state monopoly of violence—they only contest the practice of violence, and any state monopoly of peace action. Cooperation between state and non-state parties is needed for the approaches outlined above. Non-state actors may be able to transform conflicts; states may follow and formalize an outcome through a treaty. Peacebuilding is the antidote to polarization and to social and individual pathologies, preventively in Phase I (of the UN model) and curatively in Phases II–III of this model. Peacekeeping (violence control) and peace zones (models of peace) are best accomplished if military, police, and civilians work together. And reconciliation to heal traumas of violence and bring about closure must include state actors if these states used violence. The war between terrorism and state terrorism calls for all approaches and not only for control of violence by one party over the other. What about peace research/peace study? This field has to cover all approaches, and must also draw on theory from micro- (intra/interpersonal), meso- (intrasocial), and macro- (internation and interstate) levels of human organization. The old model of one semester or summer courses on peace studies will have to yield to an academic program that treats peace studies like health studies, with its own university faculty, and a four- or five-year course of study, including practical experience, or preparing for future professional activity.
Searching for peace
APPENDIX
1.
2.
45
TWELVE REDUCTIONISMS IN ANGLOAMERICA’S TERRORISM CONSTRUCTION
The term terrorism is reductionist, from war to one-way violence. A war is two-way violence, possibly across vast distances in space and time, and violence tends to breed violence. Wars have long been fought by the military and also by civilians who are not in uniform. In the latter case, the action is often called ‘guerrilla’ (the little war) or resistance, like during World War II. Wars have long been directed against the military and civilians. (War in a strict sense is military against military; guerrilla is civilians against military; state terrorism is military against civilians; and terrorism is civilians against civilians.) As simple as that. But such terms, and this typology, focus only on methods, like calling Hitlerism ‘KZ-ism,’ Stalinism ‘gulagism,’ UK colonialism ‘gun-boatism,’ ‘punishment expeditionism’ and US imperialism ‘bomberism.’ That may all be true, but like ‘terrorism’ these terms are designed to obscure what really happens. Those who use the term ‘terrorism’ seem to assume that their listeners have a low IQ, but they only betray their own low IQ level. Starting history at 9/11–07/07 is reductionist presentism; terrorism is not its own cause; there is a prehistory. The causal chains are complex. They also pass through the West in general, the Anglo-American world domination in particular, and the United States even more particularly, with 70 US post-World War II interventions moving, with considerable overlaps, through four regions: Spatial patterns of US interventions: Four post-WWII regions 1950s–60s: Region I East Asia Confucianism; Buddhism 1970s: Region II Latin America Catholic Christianity 1980s–90s: Region III West Asia Islam
3.
Maybe Buddhism forgives, Christianity recognizes a world power if it is Christian, and Islam neither forgives attacks nor recognizes world Christian authority but rather hits back? Most people leave the autistic phase before they are ten years old, and enter a reciprocity phase, seeing both self and other as both cause and consequence of both good and evil. This was known to Buddhism 2500 years before Piaget as ‘co-arising dependency.’ Those Big Powers who accuse others of autism only display their own. To see violence against the West as only due to Iraq and Israel–Palestine is reductionist. The causal chains pass through the shared history of
46
Peace and war after September 11
colonizer and colonized; and then mutate inside the formerly colonized as support for Arab/Muslim autocracies, and inside former colonial countries as an inability to absorb immigrants. In both, the manifestations are often both direct violence and structural violence. However, there are variations from place to place, and some common factors do not explain it all. 4. The frequent reference to Al Qaeda, The Base, is reductionist, trying to understand and control by saying a name, and identifying an organization that may be vulnerable. Saying a ‘movement with numerous autonomous cells and persons linked by Islam and the stages of jihad’ would be less vulnerable, and also would increasingly inspire anti-colonialist/anti-imperialist movements, as is the case now in Latin America. 5. The frequent reference to Bin Laden is reductionist, trying to understand and control complexity by naming one person (e.g., if we could only get him, ‘dead or alive’); underestimating the capacity for leaderless action. One senses a pre-modern projection on Lucifer, the fallen archangel close to God who became Satan, as evil personified. 6. The frequent reference to ‘mastermind’ is reductionist, underestimating the intellectual capacity of common participants—like the Intifada I use of simple, abundant resources like stones, the Intifada II use of suicide bombing, and the 9/11 use of planes as bombs (thereby closing the gap between terrorism based on bombs with no planes, and state terrorism based on bombs and planes). None of this was foreseen by Western ‘intelligence’ with its bias toward the material rather than the mental/spiritual (HUMINT—human intelligence). This in-box mastermind approach only betrays their own lack of HUMINT, and will also impede anticipation of the obvious next steps. 7. The frequent reference to ‘funding’ is reductionist, underestimating brain- and sacrifice- rather than capital-intensive work. The poor performance of the Western military, as well as Western intelligence agencies, may be indicative of the opposite profile. 8. The frequent reference to ‘martyrdom’ is reductionist, to cost–benefit egoism rather than to sacrifice for their cause, against the cause of that cause, the West, particularly Anglo-American dominion. 9. The frequent reference to ‘fundamentalist Islam’ is reductionist, not because it does not exist, but because it locates the cause in the other only, leaving out, for example, fundamentalist Christianity and numerous other political, economic, military, and social factors from past and present. There is no way to reduce history to religion alone, even if missionary Christianity and Islam did play some role.
Searching for peace
47
10.
The frequent reference to ‘foreigner’ is reductionist, underestimating the cohesion of Islam from Casablanca to Mindanao with borders mainly drawn by the West, and ignoring the cohesion of the pan-Arab community. 11. The frequent reference to attitudinal hatred and behavioral violence, without reference to the underlying contradiction, is reductionist, launching the West in a series of endless efforts to control hatred and violence, while at the same time impeding the West’s efforts to close those vicious cycles through negotiation, truce, and settlements— Dar al-’Ahd. 12. The frequent reference to levels of destructive capability of an actor is reductionist, because it leaves out consideration for the level of vulnerability of that actor. The enormous destructive power of the West, and Anglo-America in particular, is reduced by the vulnerability of both the United Kingdom and the United States. And to the much lower destructive power of the other side (non-Western actors) must be added a much higher level of invulnerability to attach—for example, in urban and other jungles, in mountains with countless caves. Much of the West’s work to reduce the destructive capacity of other through attitudinal and behavioral control is also destructive of Western democracy. More focus on the West’s own vulnerability, for instance through hardening of potential targets, would make Western efforts more defensive and would not fuel the escalation of violence. As it is now, Al Qaeda could be content just to watch the West destroy itself. All of these 12 reductionisms are consistent with the privileged security approach. The other side (the peace discourse approach) is seen as problematic; the other side is ‘analyzed.’ Some of that analysis is necessary, but not without a focus on conflict and disharmony, as well as a focus on cooperation and harmony (prominent in the October 2005–Islam dialogue in Madrid). With intellectual flaws such as these, the 21st century may well beat the 20th century in its level of violence. And these intellectual flaws mainly originate in the West.
NOTE 1. Originally presented at DFID/FCO/DOD Retreat (for their conflict specialists), Eastbourne, UK, November 9, 2005, and London School of Economics, London, November 7, 2005, but not published by them.
48
Peace and war after September 11
REFERENCES Galtung, J. (1996), Peace By Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization, London: Sage. Galtung, J. (2004), Transcend and Transform: An Introduction to Conflict Work, London/Boulder, CO: Pluto/Paradigm Press.
4. Diaspora, empire, resistance: peace and the subaltern as rupture(s) and repetition(s)1 Lester Edwin J. Ruiz There are two human inventions which may be considered more difficult than others—the art of government, and the art of education, and people still contend as to their meaning. (Kant [1800] 1900, p. 12) A rational exposition becomes an assertion of authority if no trace remains of the fumbling approaches that made it possible . . . The political world shuns objective elucidation of its practices as an academic exercise, while the academic world rejects as ‘political’ any testing of its statements against the real. (Debray, 1983) Every declared rupture is an undeclared repetition. (Spivak, 1999, p. 333)
I THE FIRST RUPTURE AND REPETITION: LOCATION AND CRITIQUE The intellectual production, reproduction, and representation in which I am engaged, as much as it may desire the sublime, is still the discourse of what one might call a privileged male flâneur, if not bricoleur, however personally innocent, even if he aspires towards a Gramscian ‘organic intellectual.’ Because all intellectual work is a passage through privilege, it is fraught with both dangers and possibilities: dangers because we are a species marked, not only by reason, or by freedom, but also by error; possibilities because the history of thought, read as a critical philosophy appreciative of ‘fallibility,’ becomes a ‘history of trials, an open-ended history of multiple visions and revisions, some more enduring than others’ (Faubion, 1998, p. xxxii). It was Michel Foucault who pointed out that: If the history of the sciences is discontinuous—that is, if it can be analyzed only as a series of ‘corrections,’ as a new distribution that never sets free, finally and forever, the terminal moment of truth—the reason, again is that ‘error’ 49
50
Peace and war after September 11 constitutes not a neglect or a delay of the promised fulfillment but the dimension peculiar to the life of human beings and indispensable to the duration [temps] of the species. (Ibid., p. 476)
I hope to make clear in this chapter that a recognition not only of location, but also of positionality and maneuver, is not mere confession that would be good for the soul, but rather, methodologically decisive for the production and reproduction of knowledge as a passage to transformation—the creation of the fundamentally new, which is also fundamentally better in the context of conflict and collaboration, continuity and change, and the creation of justice (Halpern, 1987). Here, there is a great need to begin with an affirmation of self-critical accountability because ‘every declared rupture is an undeclared repetition’ (Spivak, 1999, p. 333). Listen one more time to Foucault ([1980] 1997): I can’t help but dream about a kind of criticism that would try not to judge but to bring an oeuvre, a book, a sentence, an idea to life; it would light fires, watch the grass grow, listen to the wind, and catch the sea foam in the breeze and scatter it. It would multiply not judgments but signs of existence; it would summon them from their sleep. Perhaps, it would invent them sometimes—all the better. All the better. Criticism that hands down sentences sends me to sleep; I’d like a criticism of scintillating leaps of the imagination. It would not be sovereign or dressed in red. It would bear the lightning of possible storms.
Foucault continues (1988): The work of an intellectual is not to shape other’s political will; it is, through the analysis that he carries out in his field, to question over and over again what is postulated as self-evident, to disturb people’s mental habits, the way they do and think things, to dissipate what is familiar and accepted, to reexamine rules and institutions and on the basis of this re-problematization . . . to participate in the formation of a political will (in which he has his role as a citizen to play).
Let me suggest that the discourses on peace, religion, and politics, while drawn from the world of the everyday life (our individual practice) when brought together in symposia such as ‘Peace Movements and Pacifism after September 11’ (in other words, our intellectual production, reproduction, and representation) becomes profoundly embedded in an intellectual idealism that is the dominant, if often taken for granted, perspective in most institutions of higher education throughout the United States, if not the world. By intellectual idealism I mean the surrender of the real to the concept, or in Christian theological language, mistaking the attributes of God for the Being of God. In this perspective, knowledge is transformed into abstract representations of the real—which is not to assert they are untrue—only that these representations are a different order of reality not
Diaspora, empire, resistance
51
to be confused with that which we claim they represent. Intellectual idealism is the surrender of the real to its concept. More important, perhaps, is that the institution and its intellectuals are seen as the privileged and autonomous repository of knowledge and truth from which other institutions in society draw their legitimation, if not guidance and inspiration. In a different, though not unrelated context, Jacques Derrida (1983) has argued that this intellectual idealism, often believed to be autonomous from the ensemble of relations in which it is implicated, is rooted, in the raison d’être itself of the modern university, namely, the principle of reason that is construed as the ground that legitimates the university’s existence. Unfortunately, in the world of modernity, reason has often been understood, uncritically, as instrumental and technological rationality. That the triumph of this type of rationality has led to the eclipse of the gentler, more human passions of life, and therefore has become destructive of humanity and nature, has been argued persuasively elsewhere, it is important only to be reminded of it here (see, for example, Heidegger, 1969 and Leiss, 1994). Invariably, this grand narrative of reason produces what Foucault called ‘meticulous rituals of power’ (see, for example, Staples, 1997) that are widely circulated, no doubt globally, and which reproduce the narrative itself, constituting thereby the political, economic, cultural, and social terrain known as modernity, which has become the naturalized home of the university and its intellectuals. By modernity, I mean, taking Ashley and Walker’s lead (1990a, pp. 367–416), the ‘multifaceted historical narrative rooted in the Enlightenment, dominant in Western society, expressed in rationalist theory, and centering on the progressive unfolding of universalizing reason and social harmony via science, technology, law, and the state.’ Where Ashley and Walker assist us in identifying the contours of this multifaceted historical narrative, Anthony Giddens provides a useful institutional cartography of modernity, arguing in The Consequences of Modernity (1990) that there are four institutional dimensions of modernity: capitalism, that is, capital accumulation in the context of competitive labor and product markets; industrialism, that is, the transformation of nature or the development of the ‘created environment’; surveillance, that is, the control of information and social supervision; and, military power, that is, the control of the means of violence in the context of the industrialization of war. We need only look carefully—meditate if you will—at the dominant institutions of state and society: their rhetoric, rites, and procedures, their modes of demonstration, their rituals of authorization and legitimization, and their bureaucracies and hierarchies, to realize how profoundly and thoroughly infused they are, in varying degrees, with the practices that constitute the grand narrative of modernity. To this point, I will return later in this chapter.
52
Peace and war after September 11
What is important to understand about the intellectual idealism that resides in the narrative of modernity is its logocentric disposition, that is, the tendency to regard all thought, feeling, and action as grounded in some fundamental identity, principle of interpretation or necessary thinking substance, which is itself regarded as unproblematic, ahistorical, and hence, in no need of critical accounting. Crucial to this logocentric disposition, as Ashley and Walker (1990a, fn 20) point out, is that the principle of interpretation and practice is conceived as existing in itself, as a foundation or origin of history’s making, not a contingent effect of political practices within history. Such a disposition has become a principle of articulation, if not a ground for domination, that creates and recreates human life in its own image—to use a theological metaphor familiar to many of us. Such a grand narrative has not gone unchallenged. John Dewey (1916), Ivan Illich (1995), and Paulo Friere (1972) have challenged it on pedagogical, political, and cultural grounds. In the last 20 years, two challenges have been particularly fascinating to me. On the one hand, Jacques Derrida (1983, fn 7, by rendering the principle of reason transparent, refuses to submit to its logocentric pretensions, and casts profound suspicion on the idealist construal of reason as the arche and telos of the university, and by extension, its intellectuals. In doing so, he problematizes not only these modern institutions of higher education, but also the moral responsibility in society of its intellectuals. On the other hand, Jean François Lyotard (1984, p. xxiv) proclaims his incredulity toward metanarratives noting that ‘the obsolescence of the metanarrative apparatus corresponds to the crisis of metaphysical philosophy and of the university institution which in the past relied on it.’ The cultural/philosophical challenge posed by Derrida and Lyotard, in fact, has a political/pedagogical correlate. Several historically significant examples may be noted here: (1) Paulo Friere (1972, fn 13) developed a pedagogy for liberation that repudiates modern educational practices for being sites of domination; (2) Jim Merod (1989, p. 1) challenges what he calls the aesthetic idealism of his discipline, by demonstrating the ‘intimacy between the world of everyday labor and that other world of intellectual exercise which seeks an essentially theoretical clarity’; (3) Noam Chomsky (2004), focuses his critique of the university and its intellectuals on the ways academic scholarship serves to bolster the coercive power of the US state. Similarly, ICU’s COE Program, in particular, drawing in part on Illich’s notion of ‘conviviality,’ and the uniquely Japanese notion of kyosei, may be read, perhaps, against the grain, as aspiring to a similar cultural, philosophical, and pedagogical challenge (Murakami, Kawamura, and Chiba, 2005). I want to suggest, moreover, that these historically significant examples are, in fact, ruptures in the modernist narrative articulated by the university
Diaspora, empire, resistance
53
and its intellectuals. While these challenges originate from different perspectives and have divergent destinations, they intersect, at least, at one critical point, the significance of which, by its being self-evident has often been seriously underestimated, namely, they insist, in the words of Régis Debray (1983), both the objective elucidation of its academic assertions and the testing of these assertions against what is real. It is also at this same intersection, that the dangers of repetition arise, not only at the level of the production and reproduction of knowledge, but also at the level of consumption and representation. It is not enough, for example, to assert the importance or desirability of kyosei as the distinctive contribution of Japanese culture to world peace; it is necessary not only to uncover the ways in which it may function as an ‘empty signifier’ on which particular aspirations for ‘community’ are inscribed, but also whether in fact, as an empty signifier it allows the migration of patriarchal, war-mongering ideologies and sensibilities associated with some aspects of Japanese culture. The Immanuel Kant of the ‘perpetual peace’ may, indeed, provide us with a remarkable manifesto for world peace in the 21st century, but, is it ever possible to exorcise the ghosts of a Kantian ‘categorical imperative’ read, unfortunately, from the logocentric presuppositions of a Hobbesian world committed to the imperative of a universal ‘order,’ that casts its shadow on perpetual peace? Every declared rupture is an undeclared repetition.
II THE SECOND RUPTURE AND REPETITION: USLED EMPIRE IN A POST-SEPTEMBER 11 WORLD Conventional wisdom would have us believe that the discourses of peace, religions, and politics, particularly, of peace movements and pacifism in the so-called West or global North, were ruptured by what we now simply call ‘9/11.’ Recall that the last quarter of the 20th century was marked by the real possibility of world peace: from perestroika in the Soviet Union, to the ‘peace dividend’ in the United States, to the apparent collapse of détente, the Berlin Wall, and of apartheid in South Africa. Remember the optimism of ‘political solutions’ migrating into the armed struggles of revolutionary movements. Note as well, the successes of the UN Summits, and the emergence of ‘global civil society’ especially what has now come to be known as the World Social Forums. There is much truth to this wisdom that still remains to be fully excavated. Indeed, the International Symposium on ‘Peace movements and Pacifism after September 11’ is built around the assumption that 9/11 by itself was profound rupture—not only a breach of security, but a breach of understanding, of civilizational proportions. The events following 9/11 that
54
Peace and war after September 11
continue to reverberate to this day hint only at such a breach: the invasion of Afghanistan, the occupation of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and the ‘preemptive’ US-led, global war on terrorism, are ruptures along the pathways to peace heralded in the last quarter of the 20th century. Shin Chiba (Chapter 8) has noted correctly that in the United States, principled pacifists are re-evaluating the political, if not philosophical adequacy or efficacy of pacifism in a world of globalized terrorism. Even Richard Falk (Chapter 2), known for his consistent critique of US hegemony, was prepared to bracket this critique in the face of the need for some kind of post9/11 proportional response to the threat of terrorism. Only after the US-led war against global terrorism was unmasked in the occupation of Iraq and the lies about weapons of mass destruction, did he return to his critique that yet again, the United States was primarily interested in the reinscription of its hegemony in the post, post-Cold War era. Six years later, such reinscriptions are found in the US Patriot Act and its reincarnations in other similar laws enacted by other states, in the redundant, if unproven security measures undertaken at ports of entry worldwide. And, in the United States today, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent—and will be spent—on such interesting border measures as building a fence—a Maginot Line or Berlin Wall of sorts—between the United States and Mexico to keep so-called undocumented aliens outside of the United States, while at the same time criminalizing US citizens for employing or harboring undocumented workers as nannies, farm workers, and household helpers. One way to read the compulsive expansionism, the impatience with the UN and other multilateral frameworks of foreign policy, and the politics of perpetual war of neoconservatives like Elliot Abrams, Richard L. Armitage, John Bolton, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and R. James Woolsey (see, for example, Dorrien, 2004)—is as a refusal to surrender state and individual sovereignty as the cornerstone of modern liberal politics—the same principle that has migrated through Hobbes and Locke and that has given rise, if Giorgio Agamben (2005) is to be believed, to the Nazi concentration camp as the metaphor for sovereignty in our time. Thus, every declared rupture is an undeclared repetition. Indeed, it would be an act of hubris if one accepts the short-sighted wisdom that September 11 is a one-of-a-kind, unrepeatable historical event that has changed forever the United States and the rest of the world. Not only is it not unique in the context of the broader patterns of direct violence in our contemporary world of which Vietnam, Chile, Iran, the Congo, Indonesia, South Africa, Laos, Guatemala, El Salvador, Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone are examples now easily forgotten; it is also not yet the ‘mother of all victimizations’—even though it touches all our lives
Diaspora, empire, resistance
55
and casts a long dark shadow on our planet. The United States is not the only victim of terrorism. On September 11, 1973, Salvador Allende, the democratically elected president of Chile, died while refusing to flee an air attack on the Presidential Palace by members of the Chilean armed forces supported by the United States. September 11, 1973 not only gave us Augusto Pinochet, now an icon of terror, it allows us to understand the deeper significance of 9/11. In fact, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the invasion and occupation of Iraq, an extensive debate has emerged over the prospects and conditions for organizing opposition to the various currents of US policy that advocate imperial rule. These currents share essential ends but differ on the means to achieving and consolidating a system of US hegemony. What is notable is the extent to which military power and the role of the state has come to the fore, a decade after the state’s eulogy was being delivered worldwide. Prior to 9/11, an emerging focus was on globalization as the dominant form of imperial rule (often framed as globalization with adjectives: neoliberal, corporate, imperialist).2 Still the reality of a US empire, if not a US-led empire, refuses to go away.3 Supplement: Notes on US Empire4 All empires for the last 500 years have had European roots (de Blij and Muller, 2004). The contemporary Euro-American history and imperial model begins with Christopher Columbus in 1492, followed by Vasco da Gama in 1498.5 While the Western imperium began with Iberian Catholic colonization, the last 400 or so years following the ‘sinking of the Spanish Armada’ in 15886 was dominated by the emergence of North-Western European empires, mostly from Protestant countries. Often generally unacknowledged, the United States has had a much longer imperial history dating back at least to the colonization of the Philippines in the 1890s. This imperial status is now being proclaimed unashamedly by many in the US government. But its imperial history is well in continuity with the classical European pattern that emerged at the end of the 15th century and through which Europe, and by extension, European immigrant states, claimed the right to all civilizational contributions, sources, and foundations. While there have been unique expressions of this imperial project, its fundamental structures retain their European foundational values. Every empire, whatever its raison d’être, is fundamentally an articulation of power. Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem: ‘White Man’s Burden: The United States and the Philippine Islands, 1899,’7 with its binary of
56
Peace and war after September 11
benighted natives and do-gooder colonizing Westerners, is a classic example of an unrepentant, self-aggrandizing, paternalistic raison d’être. Though a British colonialist, Kipling urged America to pursue its colonial and imperial project, while justifying the effort as a great contribution to the colonized peoples of the Philippines: Take up the White Man’s burden– Send forth the best ye breed– Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives’ need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild– Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.
Foucault has argued persuasively that power and knowledge are inextricably related. He makes this point in the Conclusion of his book (Foucault, 1972) where one discovers two voices: one posed as the interrogator, from the arrogant stance of one possessing all knowledge already, and the other from a respondent who is still only on the possible way to knowledge. The position of the former could be read as that of the Cercle d’Épistémologie research group of the 1960s (ibid., p. 17), and the latter as Foucault himself. A more interesting reading is suggested by William Connolly’s critique of the interrogator’s claim. He argues that one sort out the two voices present within Foucault himself, ‘recalling that both voices must be present in any text that seeks to speak to its own culture while contesting some of its patterns of insistence’ (Foucault, 1972, fn 28, p. 205; Connolly, 1991, p. 61). Following Connolly, this chapter argues that the West at its imperial best, the United States being a great example, arrogates to itself the power and privilege of the interrogator, consistently negating or demeaning the role of other peoples in civilizational, socio-cultural, political, and economic history, while claiming this history as an exclusively Western possession.8 At the same time the West is very quick to hyperbolize the imperial powers, practices, and ambitions of others, and to point out their pathologies: all that is good is of Western origin and all that is wrong is part of the larger tragic human condition that is external to the West.
III US-LED EMPIRE: ‘I CONQUER THEREFORE I AM’ Here the logocentric predispositions of modernity noted previously have migrated to ‘empire’: ‘I think therefore I am’ becomes ‘I conquer therefore I am.’
Diaspora, empire, resistance
57
Thus, to read the rest of our lives in terms of 9/11 is to overestimate the significance of this specific set of events, and to underestimate the complexity of the processes that gave rise to them, and the nihilistic responses to them of the institutions of capital, perhaps, the most repugnant of all, the US government’s economic stimulus package given to corporations to offset their losses as a result of September 11, 2001: $1.4 billion for IBM, $833 million for General Motors, $671 million for General Electric, $572 million for Chevron Texaco, $254 million for Enron, at the same time that countless, if unnamable, victims have sought assistance to restore their broken lives, but who have yet to receive something from the government. Six years later and 1001 justifications for homeland security and a Christian crusade against global terrorism, there is no doubt that the United States is still moving through a profound crisis. The US response, particularly by its government, is nothing less than an undeclared repetition of what Richard Slotkin (2000) has documented as the US mythology of moral regeneration through violence. The mother of all ironies is that the desire to regenerate itself rests on an incarcerative model of life that first locks down the space for thinking, feeling, and acting; and, second, stops, freezes, and overwhelms time. Once space, time, and place are colonized— incarcerated, if not executed, as we saw in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, or the institutionalization of homeland security in the United States legitimized under H.R. 3162, The USA Patriot Act of 2001, and now, the obsessive drive to go bring Iraq out of barbarism into civilization while refusing to bring New Orleans out of the ravages of Hurricane Katrina—once this happens, the moral/ethical and political life comes to an end. For ethics and politics require open space, and moving time, that is, history—human beings actively engaged in the creation and recreation of their everyday lives.
IV THE THIRD RUPTURE AND REPETITION: DIASPORA, GLOBAL CAPITAL, AND STRANGENESS In his analysis of modern international politics and global capitalism, Michael Dillon (1995, pp. 357–8) notes: Our age is one in which . . . the very activities of their own states—combined regimes of sovereignty and governmentality—together with the global capitalism of states and the environmental degradation of many populous regions of the planet have made many millions of people radically endangered strangers in their own homes as well as criminalized or anathemized strangers in the places to which they have been forced to flee. The modern age’s response to the strangeness
58
Peace and war after September 11 of others, indeed, the scale of its politically instrumental, deliberate, juridical, and governmental manufacture of estrangement, necessarily calls into question, therefore, its very ethical and political foundations and accomplishments— particularly those of the state and of the international state system.
In my context, this estrangement is clearly demonstrated by the migration of Filipinos, today numbering almost 10 million, to other parts of the planet.9 Such migrations, especially to the United States could simply be the consequence of an ineradicable colonial experience—the inevitable ‘return’ of the colonized to the home of his or her colonizer.10 However, such a ‘journey,’ particularly in the last 20 years could very well be the apotheosis of modernity, the effect of the fundamental transformations that are occurring under the sign of a globalizing transnational capitalism (Dillon, 1995, pp. 323–68; Anderson, 2000). Perhaps, the most innovative of all metaphors deployed for such fundamental transformations has been that of turbulence, suggesting by its use not mere motion, activity, or movement, but disruptive, unpredictable, volatile speed (Virilio, 1997). Of migration, Nikos Papastergiadis (2000, pp. 3–21) notes: The flows of migration across the globe are not explicable by any general theory. In the absence of structured patterns of global migration, with direct causes and effects, turbulence is the best formulation for the mobile processes of complex self-organization that are now occurring. These movements may appear chaotic, but there is a logic and order within them . . . As Manuel de Landa noted, ‘a turbulent flow is made out of a hierarchy of eddies and vortices inside more eddies and vortices’
Such turbulent flows have produced new forms of belonging and identity, not to mention novel understandings of contemporary politics and culture. They evoke and provoke images of ‘border crossings’ as well as invasions. They reveal global trajectories of deterritorialization as well as local surges (insurgencies?) of reterritorializations. They underscore contradictions and antagonisms, while intensifying the asymmetries, of political, economic, cultural structures and processes (Soguk, 1999; Papastergiadis, 2000). Epiphanio San Juan, Jr., writing on the ‘condition of the Filipino’ (1997) particularly in the United States, observes their contemporary experience as one of a people dispersed, displaced, and dislocated. So significant has this experience of displacement, dislocation, and dispersal become in the last quarter of this century that some Filipinos have come to refer to this, not so inaccurately, as a ‘Filipino diaspora,’ much in the same way that diaspora has been used in the Jewish and Afro-American contexts. This experience encompasses immigration, migration, and exile—from overseas contract workers (OCWs) to political exiles, from the so-called ‘undocumented’ to the variously ‘documented’ (students, businesspeople,
Diaspora, empire, resistance
59
overstaying tourists, ‘regular immigrants,’ and, ‘expats’)—under conditions ranging from the voluntary to the coercive, to the oppressive (Safran, 1991; Tololyan, 1996; Chang, 2000; Stalker, 2000). In fact, such an experience has called forth—provoked/invoked—the vocabulary, in addition to what has already been noted, of estrangement, border, and hybridity, as well as of subjectivity, identity, and, agency, particularly under the conditions of transnational capitalism (see, for example, Papastergiadis, 2000, fn 37). It is important to note that the experience of diaspora is not about the dispersal, displacement, and dislocation only of those ‘outside’ the homeland. In fact, diaspora dissolves, not only the boundaries of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ (as geopolitical, geostrategic, and territorial construals of state and society tend to require), but also their epistemological and ontological foundations. To speak of a Filipino diaspora today is to speak of a specific human condition of dispersal, displacement, and dislocation at the substantive, methodological, metatheoretical, and political/institutional levels. In this sense, the Filipino experience of diaspora is not exceptional. William Safran (1991, fn 40), for example, using the Jewish diaspora as a model, has identified a number of defining features of diaspora that resonate with the Filipino experience: ● ● ● ● ● ●
dispersal from an original ‘center’ to two or more ‘peripheral’ places; retention of a ‘collective memory, vision, or myth about their original homeland’; belief that they are not and perhaps cannot be fully accepted into their host society; belief that they or their descendants would or should eventually return to their homeland when conditions are appropriate; collective commitment to the maintenance or re-establishment of their homeland; collective consciousness and solidarity ‘importantly defined’ by this enduring relationship with the homeland.
However, the name itself may reflect a fundamental transformation in the ‘condition of the Filipino.’ For while the experience of Filipino migration and immigration is not new (Min, 1995), the speed and scope, not to mention the character, of this movement, have certainly accelerated alongside the transformations in the structures and processes of global capitalism itself.11 While the dynamics of Filipino migration and immigration continue to reflect the political, economic, and cultural character of ‘traditional’ immigration, that is, the centrality of the ‘homeland’ in the identity of the immigrant, these dynamics have been thoroughly recast by the experience of modernity: (1) the separation of time and space (including the
60
Peace and war after September 11
emptying of time and space), (2) the development of disembedding mechanisms, and, (3) the reflexive appropriation of knowledge (Giddens, 1990, fn 11, pp. 16ff). One could say, in this context, that diaspora is, in fact, a creature of modernity. The very dynamics of modernity, which is unavoidably a ‘globalizing’ experience, create the very reality of diaspora. However, as a creature of modernity, diaspora is not only a ‘condition’ that has gained some level of autonomy at the global level, which is sustained by the movements and flows of capital, people, goods, information, ideas, and images, and which alters the conditions under which communities and identities are enacted (King, 1990). Diaspora is a social construction constituted by those who are ‘in diaspora,’ by the actions and/or activities of these individuals and communities situated in different parts of the world. In short, diaspora is also, and fundamentally so, the ‘practice of subjects,’ the imagined transnational relations between and among the minority and its homeland, as well as its counterpart overseas communities throughout the world (Okamura, 1998). James Clifford (1994) has noted that these relations include cultural, economic, and social linkages evident in the circulation of people, money and consumer goods, and information and ideas though not necessarily in reference to their original homeland. ‘Diasporas,’ in other words, produced and reproduced as they are by ‘collective human agency,’ which are at once multiple and polyarchic (Rouse, 1991), also sustain what we call globalizing capitalism. At the same time, diasporas are more than creatures of modernity. The very experience of dispersal, displacement, and dislocation, in the context of the trajectories of globalization noted earlier,12 have created, among other things, conditions of borderlands and border crossings, of hybridity and contingency, of contradiction and antagonism, that are articulated, not only in academic life, but also in political, economic, and cultural life (Lemert, 1993; 1999). In fact, the (Filipino) historical example of diaspora in this chapter is a fundamental rupture in at least three areas important to any theory and practice of peace. First, it raises a critical question about the nature of the social totality of which we are a part. In fact, political, epistemological, and disciplinary boundaries are constantly being negotiated and renegotiated especially in terms of the long-held correspondence among nation, culture, identity, and place. Second, the reality of diaspora also raises a question not only about subjecthood, but also about subjectivity. This is the question of ‘the Subject’: not only who the subject is, but also what being a subject entails (Cadava, Connor, and Nancy, 1991). This is particularly important since the very reality of a diaspora ruptures any notion of a ‘unitary’ subject—even a ‘collective human subject’—which, modern institutions require, if not
Diaspora, empire, resistance
61
presuppose (Critchley and Dews, 1996). The plurality of subjects and subjectivities presupposed by a diaspora directs us not only to the question ‘What is to be done?’ but also to the questions ‘Who are we, what do we hope for, and where do we go?’ In short, ‘What does it mean to be a people?’ under the conditions of diaspora. By posing the issue as a question of community, of conviviality or kyosei, it places the normative and ethical task at the heart of peace, religions, and politics. Third, the reality of a diaspora identifies, indeed, it situates the locus of struggle and hope at the intersection of self, other, and world. In fact, by starting from the perspective of diaspora one situates the question of hope within a relational, and therefore political, whole. This is of no small significance. Locating the question at the heart of a people’s cultural practices not only challenges the narrow confines of conventional understandings of struggle and hope, but also foregrounds their most comprehensive point of departure, safeguarding, thereby, the adequacy and relevance of our own intellectual aspirations. By ‘cultural practices’ I mean those concrete, sensuous realities embodied in rhetorical forms, gestures, procedures, modes, shapes, genres of everyday life: discursive formations and/or strategies, if you will, which are radically contingent arenas of imagination, strategy, and creative maneuver (Ryan, 1989). Thus, they are always and already pluralistic and plurivocal, and therefore, contradictory, antagonistic and agnostic practices. Another way of stating the point is to suggest that diaspora ruptures the pretensions of modernity’s appetite for intellectual idealism as the foundation for human thought and action. Struggle becomes the constitutive ground for hope; and hope transforms the past and present into creatures of the future. If rupture is the defining character of diaspora, then strangeness, that is, the stranger, the other, is its religio-moral challenge. For, indeed, diaspora, as a creature of both modernity and postmodernity,13 radicalizes the experience of the stranger or of otherness in our time; and the existence of the stranger in our midst raises for us the problems, prospects, and possibilities of conviviality, if not kyosei. Strangeness, it seems, is the condition of possibility for community. It is its constitutive outside. At the same time, if the stranger is the constitutive outside, then, its constitutive inside is hospitality.14 Because hospitality is that which ‘arrives at the borders, in the initial surprise of contact with an other, a stranger, a foreigner’ (Lashley et al., 2006, p. 6) it ruptures the boundaries—the borders—that seek to contain migration and immigration in the name of state sovereignty, if not national integrity. Indeed, in the Biblical tradition, the existence of the stranger is always accompanied by the challenge of hospitality towards the stranger. Who the stranger is, is the socio-analytical question; how we treat the stranger in our midst is the ethical demand. The danger of repetition is that
62
Peace and war after September 11
the notion of hospitality itself requires the existence of strangers ‘in need of hospitality’ dictating, therefore, the creation of normative spaces that exclude before they include. In other words, the exclusionary logics of, for example, race, gender, class, migrate on to the structures of ‘hospitality’ without being overcome.
V THE FOURTH AND FINAL RUPTURE AND REPETITION: SOLIDARITY AND RESISTANCE— LET THE SUBALTERN SPEAK TO THE UNIVERSITY AND ITS INTELLECTUALS The fourth and final rupture and repetition returns us to the conversation with which I began: back to the university and its intellectuals. For as Derrida (1983, fn 7, p. 3) put it aptly, if cryptically, ‘Today, how can we not speak of the university?’ To be sure, I am skeptical about the capacity of our modern institutions of higher education to exercise a truly consistent transformative role in the societies of which they are an inextricable part. This is especially true for those societies that still value these institutions of higher education and their intellectuals as sites of legitimation and meaning. The skepticism is rendered more profound if these institutions insist on their commitment to the principle of reason and if they refuse, or are unable, not only to render this principle transparent and therefore open to transformation, but also if they hesitate to open themselves to other raisons d’être, other destinations that might lead into a friendlier, gentler, happier future. Unfortunately, human history of the last 100 years, particularly of its so-called underside, is an unrelenting witness to the seriously flawed and dangerous practices and consequences of an undisciplined, unbridled principle of reason, not to mention, modernity itself. Yet, I do not believe that the modern university will wither away— unless society itself does—or that it should. For these institutions in their medieval and modern form have always represented society: its ‘scenography, its views, conflicts, contradictions, its play and its differences, and also its desire for organic union in a total body’ (ibid., p. 19). It will not do, therefore, to disqualify these modern institutions of higher education and their intellectuals from playing a religio-moral role in society. In fact, these institutions—such as we know them—are more necessary than ever, precisely because they are already implicated in society both as sites for practices, not just modern, that discipline human experience, as well as a topos for thinking, feeling, and indeed, acting, and, as sites of contestation, of contending perspectives, commitments, values, about the good, the true, and the beautiful. As both topos and intersection, they are
Diaspora, empire, resistance
63
religio-moral events that require articulation in order that choices can be made about the future, particularly a future of peace, security, and conviviality. What are some of these practices that require articulation, precisely because they are ruptures—resistances, if you will—in the logics of location and critique, diaspora, and empire? First, there is the practice of deliberation. Deliberation cannot be reduced to mere speech. It encompasses the whole range of participative practices, which Jürgen Habermas (1985), when reminded of his flirtations with ‘ideal speech situations,’ is pointing to in his theory of communicative action, Paulo Friere’s (1972, fn 13) dialogics of liberation, and John D. Caputo’s (2000) radical hermeneutics. These practices presuppose a recognition and affirmation not only of the plurality of human life, celebrating difference as constitutive of community, but also of meaningful and direct participation in the governance of the community—at whatever level governance is called for. This practical activity of participation undermines the statist, bureaucratic, and hierarchical logics of modernity. Indeed, such practices become sites of resistance and solidarity, articulating models of conviviality that are radically democratic and participatory, republican as much as cosmopolitan, and which challenge the structures of violence, unrepentant power, and privilege. Here, ‘community’ is less the aggregation of groups based exclusively on racial, gender, or class identities or solidarities, and more the sites where human beings, if not citizens, recognize and affirm their mutual obligations and relationships while simultaneously accepting norms of tolerance and radical inclusion. These practices are retrieving the meaning and significance of popular participation, which have been largely eclipsed by the logic of modernity (see Macpherson, 1962; Unger, 1975). Retrieval, of course, is not retreat or mere repetition, nor simply imitation (mimesis), but appropriation (Ereignis), which is an historical event of mediation (see Heidegger, 1969, fn 8; Gadamer, 1989; Ricoeur, 1991). Heidegger, in his ‘Letter on Humanism’ deploys Ereignis as a play between ‘event’ and ‘appropriation’ to suggest both a need for and a way through and beyond ‘metaphysical thinking’ where the relation between being and human being is thought more originally than in metaphysics. Second, there is the practice of creating, nurturing, and defending what Hannah Arendt called ‘the common,’ that is, the public realm (Arendt, 1958; Gordon, 2002). Contrary to those modernist practices that reduce the common to a pre-given structure of reality, or even to an ethnocentric project given ontological or universal status through its imposition worldwide, the common is the space for difference carved out by deliberating communities as they seek meaningful consensus. By being committed to the
64
Peace and war after September 11
retrieval and preservation of the common, particularly a global common, one casts suspicion on the logocentric and totalizing pretensions of the modernist narrative and undermines its hegemony. It also redefines the common beyond the conventional notions of territoriality, recognizing not only our shared context or our profound pluralistic existence, but also our human species identity. By identity I do not mean some kind of universal Gattungswesen (free conscious activity), but rather, a kind of radically inclusive cosmopolitanism that is more than formal representations of ethnic, gender, or class identities—what Kwame Anthony Appiah (2006) calls a ‘contaminated cosmopolitanism.’ For diversity is not primarily about ‘representation’ or even ‘identity.’ Rather, it is about (plural) ‘locations,’ and (multiple) identifications—not some colorful polycentric liberal multiculturalism advocated, say, by a Robert Stam (Professor of Film Theory and Comparative Literature at New York University), but a ‘radical multiculturalism’ that, in the words of Spivak (1999, p. 334), ‘thinks of “culture” as the name of a complex strategic situation in a particular society—residual moving into the dominant as emergent.’ Once shifted on to this ‘ground,’ the critical question becomes, ‘How should conviviality look given our multiple locations and identifications?’ Third, there is the practice of utopia. We are reminded, ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish, (Proverbs 29:18, New International Version). This vision, is not a description of the future, rather, it is an orientation in the present, a point of entry, a beginning, a departure, but not a final solution. This is not a deficiency, however. Such a practice celebrates the simple fact of our historicality that is always in the process of being created and recreated towards the common goal of deliberating communities. To be sure, this orientation is limited by the very institutions of higher education, and of the communities that constitute these institutions. Still, this unavoidable, if necessary, limitation, can be transformed into a practical critique of universalizing hegemonies, which, in the language of Foucault, makes transgressions possible. Here, transgressions make it imaginable to undermine, subvert, put into question, those dominative practices including those pseudo-universals and false dichtomies which discipline presentday political, economic, cultural, and social experience (see also Hooks, 1994). Limitations are transformed into sites of resistance and solidarity. These sites of resistance and solidarity are not simple; nor are they simply given. Indeed, they are a multiplicity of spaces that constitute a complex, interrelated cultural terrain, often undergoing continual displacement, as they are constantly being created and recreated by the communities from which they emerge and to which they return. Thus, those who wish to carry their institutions into worlds of peace, security, and kyosei may need to return to the originary transformative
Diaspora, empire, resistance
65
inspiration that made them possible, this time, with a recognition that transformation requires different understandings and practices that acknowledge but do not privilege racial, sexual, and class categories. If there is any inspiration for pedagogy that may be derived from the politics organized around the notion of ‘global civil society’ (Cohen and Arato, 1994) in the 1980s, it is the possibility of creating communities and strategies that cut across political, economic, religious, and gender lines, that challenge the narrow confines of conventional and territorially defined institutional thought and practice. There is no need to romanticize the politics arising out of the contestation between ‘state’ and ‘civil society’ to see that the significance of these movements lie not only in their capacity to articulate different understandings and practices of politics and ideology, nor simply in their keeping open the political space open for transformation, but also as sites in which deliberation occurs on the character of that space—what it means, for whom is it space, which spaces are important. They are, therefore, in the best sense, historical blocs, counterhegemonies, in the struggle for cultural transformation (Gramsci, 1971). These historical blocs and their corresponding subjectivities, include the aggregation, disaggregation, and reaggregation of political subjectivities, in short, the reality of human community under the conditions of global capitalism’s dissolution of communities (of which the Filipino diaspora is one specific form)—for example, in the context of immigration and emigration, or cross-border and internal refugees (economic or otherwise), or ecological disasters and degradation. While such political subjectivities are neither overdetermined nor reducible to mere particular and discrete subjects. This multiplicity of subjects and subject positions, while relatively autonomous and even antagonistic of the other, is nonetheless connected by virtue of their respective struggles against violence, insecurity, and avoidable harm. Constituted not a priori, but in the context of these very struggles (see San Juan, 1994; Campomanes, 1995; San Juan, 1998), they remain constitutive for any discourse of struggle and hope. More than the multiplicity of subjects and subject positions is at stake here, however. For one’s space, time, place is of fundamental significance to the question, not only of politics and ethics, but to transformation, that is, the creation and nurture of the fundamentally new that is also fundamentally better (see Halpern, 1987, fn 4). Pluralism, even a normative pluralism, has no inherent virtue or efficacy. Who the subjects are, what they hope for, how they get there, are decisive not only to the nature and character of peace, security, and conviviality but also to any transformative practice. This, to my mind, is what the discourses that go under the sign of postcolonialism, understood broadly as ‘oppositionality which colonialism brings into being’ (Ashcroft et al., 1995, fn 55, p. 117), are addressing, as
66
Peace and war after September 11
when Gayatri Spivak (1988) asks, ‘Can the subaltern speak?’ Intellectuals such as ourselves are tirelessly and relentlessly reminded that, in this context, peace, security and conviviality are inextricably related to the singular and specific opposition to all forms of domination by concrete ‘subjects of history’ who struggle both against turn[ing] the Other into the Same and challenge those who would deny Otherness. The danger of repetition here lies in yielding to the temptation of becoming the ‘native informant’ as a marker of authenticity, at the same time that we conflate the fact of our being the world’s privileged, however personally innocent, flâneurs, with the reality of the forced migrations of workers in the streets of our global cities, following the scent of global capital. Critical to this ‘oppositional challenge’ is an affirmation of the necessary, though insufficient, role that transgression plays in any ethical practice (Hooks, 1994, fn 66). In her essay ‘A new type of intellectual: the dissident,’ Julia Kristeva (1986) argues that it is only in becoming a stranger to one’s own country, language, sex, and identity that one avoids ‘sinking into the mire of common sense’ (pp. 292–9). ‘Writing,’ she adds, ‘is impossible without some kind of exile [which is] already itself a form of dissidence’ (ibid.). At the heart of dissent—as exile and sites of difference and contestation—is both the recognition of limits and the practice of transgression of those limits. Borrowing from Ashley and Walker (1990b, p. 265), one might therefore suggest that ethics in diaspora is about: The questioning and transgression of limits, not the assertion of boundaries and frameworks; a readiness to question how meaning and order are imposed, not the search for a source of meaning and order already in place; the unrelenting and meticulous analysis of the workings of power in modern global life, not the longing for a sovereign figure . . . that promises deliverance from power; the struggle for freedom, not a religious desire to produce some territorial domicile of self-evident being that men of innocent faith can call home.
In the concreteness, contingency, and oppositionality of their differences, this plurality of subjects and subject positions widens and deepens not only the challenge to global capitalism, and provides a larger ethical/political perspective, but, more important, it creates a fundamental structure of undecidability (which is not to say it is ‘groundless’) that makes possible genuine political choices. The joining and conjoining of different movements in civil society, for example, speak eloquently to this aggregation, disaggregation, reaggregation of political communities; and so do those communities of resistance and solidarity: the excluded, the marginal, those rendered redundant. Without genuine, even antagonistic, perspectives, which admit their contingency and recognize the desirability, if not the necessity, of fundamental transformation, there is no possibility of what Jacques Derrida calls
Diaspora, empire, resistance
67
the ‘theoretico-ethical decision’ (cited in Laclau, 1996; see also Derrida, 1993). Moreover, without the recognition not only of the alterity of these different struggles, but especially what Ernesto Laclau (1996, fn 77, p. 89) underscores as the contingency of their connections, and the contingency of their connections, there can be no possibility of constituting our own political identities. For Laclau, this theoretico-ethical decision stands between the undecidability that lies at the heart of plurality, and which is the ‘terrain of the radicalization of the decision,’ and the undecidability that is the ‘source of an ethical injunction’ (ibid., pp. 81–2; Laclau, 1990). Without it, there can be no ethics or politics. As Derrida puts it, ‘there can be no moral or political responsibility without this trial and this passage by way of the undecidable’ (1998, p. 116). Indeed, if everything were reduced to the decidable, and if the undecidable were avoided, there would be no ethics, politics, or responsibility—only a program, technology, and its irresponsible application (Campbell, 1994). This is part of what I mean by letting the subaltern speak to the university and its intellectuals. To paraphrase Emmanuel Levinas, the voice and face of the subaltern are the conditions of possibility for peace, security, and conviviality (see, for example, Waldenfels, 2002). Finally, there is the practice of truthfulness, of institutions of higher education striving to be places of truth in church and society. Despite their implication in modernity’s ‘meticulous rituals of power,’ theological schools and seminaries, by intention and design, could challenge the practices of thought and action generated by the grand narrative of modernity, or other historical narratives for that matter—sexism, racism, class. They can seek to articulate different understandings of the world in which they are situated, provide alternative readings of political, economic, cultural, and religious life—without pretending or aspiring to be legislators for church and society. Truth, however, is always inextricably related to thought, and to the past, present, and future (temporality). Martin Heidegger observed that the unfolding of truth, which involves both concealment and unconcealment, was inseparable from thought itself. Not simply consciousness, even critical consciousness, thought required situating one’s self as a topos through which the truth of being was brought forth and appropriated (Heidegger, 1971). However, thought also requires, Derrida notes, and Heidegger admits, both the principle of reason and what is beyond the principle of reason, the arkhe and an-archy, which is the opening, the clearing that sets history before the future. Thus, thought presses beyond the principle of reason, though it does not repudiate it, and refuses to surrender to the everyday, the conventional, and the traditional. Here I return to the place of location and critique. What may be, in the last analysis, the appropriate role of the university and its intellectuals as they engage in the discourses of peace, security, and kyosei, is a
68
Peace and war after September 11
responsibility for the practice of thought, that is, the nurture, preservation, and defense of truth, which becomes the opening for the ‘fundamentally new and better.’ In the words of Derrida (1988, fn 7, p. 20), the ‘provocation [that] brings together in the same instant the desire for memory and exposure to the future, the fidelity of a guardian faithful enough to want to keep even the chance of a future . . . the singular responsibility of what he does not have and of what is not yet.’
NOTES 1. 2.
3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
9.
Prepared for the International Symposium on Peace, Religion, and Politics, ‘Peace Movements and Pacifism after September 11,’ sponsored by the Center of Excellence, International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan, June 2–6, 2006. The academic literature on this is extensive. See, for example, Mann (2003); Harvey (2003); Balakrishnan and Aronowitz (2003); Hardt and Negri (2000; 2004). Hardt and Negri (2000; 2004) offer one analysis that is notable for its extensive popular consumption as much as its message of a decentered system of imperial rule challenged by a rather amorphous formation they called ‘multitude.’ See generally Passavant and Dean (2004). See especially Laclau (2004). Cf. Taylor (2005); Welch (2004). This supplement on US empire is taken from Charles Amjad-Ali and Lester Edwin J. Ruiz, ‘Betrayed by a Kiss: Evangelicals and the US Empire—The Consequences of A Theological and Political Paradox,’ unpublished ms. Vasco da Gama is famous for his completion of the first all-water trade route between Europe and India. He set out from Lisbon, Portugal, on July 8, 1497, arriving finally in Calicut, India, on May 20, 1498. While the war lingered on for at least a decade after 1588, Iberian power lost nautical and therefore also colonial imperial monopoly. This was first published in an 1899 issue of McClure’s Magazine, and later in Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1929). Examples of this diminution: the Ante-Nicene Fathers collection of writings are quickly equated with Europe despite their Asian and African origins; although almost all the Greek knowledge of the Mediterranean comes to the West through Muslims, they are mostly negated or at best given perfunctory recognition. Historically, Filipinos were always a ‘migrant’ people: the ‘original’ inhabitants of the islands later called Las Islas Filipinas were nomadic; the first ‘settlers’ were ‘boat people’ from the Malayo-Polynesian region. Under Spanish colonialism, the ‘natives’ migrated to Europe, especially to Spain; under US colonialism, to the United States. In the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century, migration and immigration to the United States, despite a painful Philippine–US war, was virtually unbroken. In fact, Filipinos, whether prominent or not, were part of the woof-and-weave of American life: Filipinos in the Hawaiian pineapple and sugar cane plantations, Filipinos claiming World War II veterans’ benefits promised by the US government in return for their role in the USAFFE (United States Armed Forces in the Far East), Filipinos going to the United States to study, Filipinos joining the US military, Filipino nurses, Filipinos in exile in the United States. More recent studies indicate that Filipinos are now in over 182 countries. The numbers are dramatic: North America: 4.3 million as migrants, immigrants, and undocumented; Europe: 800 000; Middle East: 1.6 million of which 900 000 are in Saudi Arabia; Australia: 130 000; Africa: 50 000; Oceania: 63 000; South America: 3000; Asia 1.3 million of which 120 000 are in Hong Kong (out of 250 000 foreign domestic workers in a city of 7.6 million).
Diaspora, empire, resistance 10.
11.
12. 13.
14.
69
That the Philippines was the only ‘official’ colony of the United States. (although Puerto Rico and Hawaii could certainly make such a claim as well) suggests a significant difference in the dynamics of Filipino migration and immigration to the United States vis-à-vis other immigrations. Filipinos, by definition, are not immigrants, but rather, members, if not citizens, of the US nation (though definitely the ‘colonized’). Our identities, in other words, are constituted primarily in relation to US colonialism, not, as other immigrations are, in terms of the relation to both the ‘homeland’ and the ‘host country.’ The term ‘global capitalism’ used throughout this chapter is intended to be imprecise. My concern is less with a substantive definition of capitalism—clearly an impossibility given the plural forms of capitalism today—and more with specifying a region of discursive practices characterized by the globalizing trajectories of modern capitalism. In fact, it might be argued that ‘transnational capitalism’ could very well be the more useful term to describe the many capitalisms at the end of this century. By ‘globalization’ I refer to those processes of profound structural transformation that have gained some level of autonomy at the global level, which sustain the movements and flows of capital, people, goods, information, ideas, and images, and which are altering the conditions under which communities and identities are enacted. See Featherstone (1990). Cf. Sakamoto (1994); Sassen (1998). This includes those processes of profound structural transformation that have gained some level of autonomy at the global level, which sustain the movements and flows of capital, people, goods, information, ideas, and images. The modern–postmodern divide is a profoundly contested one. By placing them in proximity, as I do here, I want to suggest that these structures of meaning are best understood in both their continuities and discontinuities of method, cultural form, and political practice. Thus, I understand modernity and postmodernity less as periodizations and more as ‘conditions,’ ‘sensibilities,’ and ‘practices.’ My own orientation, sensibility, and location are probably more congenial with the theory and practice of post-coloniality than with modernity or modernity. See, for example, Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin (1995). This I take to be the philosophical significance of Jacques Derrida’s January 1996 Paris lectures on ‘Foreigner Question’ and ‘Step of Hospitality/No Hospitality’ published in Derrida and Dufourmantelle (2000).
REFERENCES Agamben, G. (2005), State of Exception, translated by Kevin Attell, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Anderson, S. (ed.) (2000), Views from the South: The Effects of Globalization and the WTO on Third World Countries, San Francisco: Institute of Food and Development Policy. Appiah, K.A. (2006), ‘The Case for Contamination’, New York Times Magazine, 1 January. Arendt, H. (1958), The Human Condition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ashcroft, B., G. Griffiths, and H. Tiffin (eds) (1995), The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, New York: Routledge. Ashley, R.K. and R.B.J. Walker (1990a), ‘Reading dissidence/writing the discipline: crisis and the question of sovereignty in international studies,’ International Studies Quarterly, 34(3): 367–416. Ashley, R.K. and R.B.J. Walker (1990b), ‘Speaking the language of exile: dissident thought in international studies,’ International Studies Quarterly, 34(3): 265.
70
Peace and war after September 11
Balakrishnan, G. and S. Aronowitz (eds) (2003), Debating Empire, London: Verso. Cadava, E., P. Connor, and J.-L. Nancy (eds) (1991), Who Comes After the Subject?, New York: Routledge. Campbell, D. (1994), ‘The deterritorialization of responsibility: Levinas, Derrida, and ethics after the end of philosophy,’ Alternatives: Social Transformation and Humane Governance, 19(4): 477. Campomanes, O. (1995), ‘The new empire’s forgetful and forgotten citizens: unrepresentability and unassimilability in Filipino-American postcolonialities,’ Criticial Mass, 2(2): 145–200. Caputo, J. (2000), More Radical Hermeneutics: On Not Knowing Who We Are, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Chang, G. (2000), Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Economy, Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Chomsky, N. (2004), Chomsky on Mis-Education, edited by Donaldo Macedo, New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc. Clifford, J. (1994), ‘Diasporas,’ Cultural Anthropology, 9(3): 306. Cohen, J.L. and A. Arato (1994), Civil Society and Political Theory, Boston, MA: MIT Press. Connolly, W.E. (1991), Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, p. 61. Critchley, S. and P. Dews (eds) (1996), Deconstructing Subjectivities, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. de Blij, H.J. and P.O. Muller (2004), Geography: Realms, Regions and Concepts, 11th edition, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley and Sons Inc., p. 40. Debray, R. (1983), Critique of Political Reason, London: Verso. Derrida, J. (1983), ‘The principle of reason: the university in the eyes of its pupils,’ Diacritics, 13(3): 3–20. Derrida, J. (1988), Limited Inc., translated by Samuel Weber, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, p. 116. Derrida, J. (1993), Specters of Marx: the State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International, translated by Peggy Kamuf, New York: Routledge. Derrida, J. and A. Dufourmantelle (2000), Of Hospitality, translated by Rachel Bowlby, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Dewey, J. (1916), Democracy and Education, New York: The Free Press. Dillon, M. (1995), ‘Sovereignty and governmentality: from the problematics of the “new world order” to the ethical problematic of the world order,’ Alternatives: Social Transformation and Humane Governance, 20(3). Dorrien, G. (2004), Imperial Designs: Neoconservativism and the New Pax Americana, New York: Routledge. Faubion, J.D. (1998), ‘Introduction,’ in J.D. Faubion (ed.) Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology: Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, Vol. 2, New York: The New Press. Featherstone, M. (ed.) (1990), Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity, London: Sage. Foucault, M. (1972), The Archaeology of Knowledge, translated by A.M. Sheridan Smith, New York: Pantheon. Foucault, M. (1980), ‘The Masked Philosopher,’ interview by Christian Delacampagne, reprinted in Paul Rabinow (ed.), Michael Foucault, Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984, Vol. 1, New York: The New Press.
Diaspora, empire, resistance
71
Foucault, M. (1980), ‘The Concern for Truth’, in L.D. Kritzman (ed.), Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings, 1977–1984, New York: Routledge. Friere, P. (1972), Pedagogy of the Oppressed, translated by Myra Bergman Ramos, New York: Crossroads Publishing Company. Gadamer, H.G. (1989), Truth and Method, 2nd revised edition, translated by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall, New York: Crossroads. Giddens, A. (1990), The Consequences of Modernity, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 55–78. Gordon, M. (ed.) (2002), Hannah Arendt and Education: Renewing Our Common World, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Gouldner, A. (1982), The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class: A Frame of References, Theses, Conjectures, Arguments, and an Historical Perspective on the Class Contest of the Modern Era, New York: Oxford University Press. Gramsci, A. (1971), Selections from the Prison Notebooks, New York: International Publishers. Habermas, J. (1985), The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. 1, Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Halpern, M. (1987), ‘Choosing between ways of life and death and between forms of democracy: an archetypal analysis,’ Alternatives: Social Transformations and Humane Governance, 12(2): 5–35. Hardt, M. and A. Negri (2000), Empire, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hardt, M. and A. Negri (2004), Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire, New York: Penguin. Harvey, D. (2003), The New Imperialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heidegger, M. (1969), The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, translated by William Lovett, New York: Harper Torchbooks. Heidegger, M. (1971), Poetry, Language, Thought, translated by Albert Hofstadter, New York: Harper Collins. Hooks, B. (1994), Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, New York: Routledge. Illich, I. (1999), De-Schooling Society, London: Marion Boyars Publishers. Kant, I. [1800] (1900), Ueber Pedagogik, translated by Annette Churton, Boston: D.C. Heath and Co., p. 12. King, A. (1990), ‘Architecture, Capital, and the Globalization of Culture,’ in M. Featherstone (ed.), Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity, London: Sage, fn 44, p. 397. Kristeva, J. (1986), ‘A New Type of Intellectual: The Dissident,’ in Toril Moi (ed.), The Kristeva Reader, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 292–9. Kritzman, L.D. (ed.) (1988), Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writing, 1977–1984, New York: Routledge. Laclau, E. (1990), New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time, New York: Verso. Laclau, E. (1996), Emancipation(s), New York: Verso, p. 89. Laclau, E. (2004), ‘Can Immanence Explain Empire?,’ in P. Passavant and J. Dean (eds), Empire’s New Clothes, New York: Routledge, pp. 21–30. Lashley, C., P. Lynch, and A. Morrison (eds) (2006), Hospitality: A Social Lens, Boston: Elsevier. Leiss, W. (1994), The Domination of Nature, Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.
72
Peace and war after September 11
Lemert, C. (ed.) (1993, 1999), Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Lyotard, J.F. (1984), The Postmodern Condition (Theory & History of Literature), translated by G. Bennington and B. Massumi, Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Macpherson, C.B. (1962), The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke, New York: Oxford University Press. Mann, M. (2003), Incoherent Empire, London: Verso. Merod, J. (1989), The Political Responsibility of the Critic, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Min, P.G. (ed.) (1995), Asian Americans, London: Sage. Murakami, Y., N. Kawamura, and S. Chiba (2005), Toward a Peaceable Future: Redefining Peace, Security, and Kyosei from a Multidisciplinary Perspective, Pullman, WA: Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service, Washington State University. Okamura, J. (1998), Imagining the Filipino American Diaspora: Transnational Relations, Identities, and Communities, New York: Garland Publishing Inc. Papastergiadis, N. (2000), The Turbulence of Migration: Globalization, Deterritorializtion, and Hybridity, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Passavant, P.A. and J. Dean (eds) (2004), Empire’s New Clothes: Reading Hardt and Negri, New York: Routledge. Rabinow, P. (ed.) (1997), Foucault, Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984, Vol. 1, New York: The New Press. Ricoeur, P. (1991), From Text to Action, translated by Kathleen Blamey and John B. Thompson, Evanstone, IL: Northwestern University Press. Rouse, R. (1991), ‘Mexican migration and the social space of postmodernism,’ Diaspora, 1(8): 11. Ryan, M. (1989), Politics and Culture: Working Hypotheses for a Post-Revolutionary Society, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Safran, W. (1991), ‘Diasporas in modern societies: myths of homeland and return,’ Diaspora, 1(1): 83–99. Sakamoto, Y. (ed.) (1994), Global Transformation: Challenges to the State System, Tokyo: United Nations University Press. San Juan, E. Jr. (1994), ‘Configuring the Filipino diaspora in the United States,’ Diaspora, 3(2): 117–33. San Juan, E. Jr. (1997), ‘Fragments from a Filipino exile’s journal,’ Amerasia Journal, 23(2): 1–25. San Juan, E. (1998), From Exile to Diaspora: Versions of the Filipino Experience in the United States, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Sassen, S. (1998), Globalization and its Discontents, New York: W.W. Norton. Slotkin, R. (2000), Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600–1860, Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Soguk, N. (1999), States and Strangers: Refugees and Displacements of Statecraft, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Spivak, G. Chakravorty (1988), ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?,’ in Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, London: Macmillan. Spivak, G. Chakravorty (1999), A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Diaspora, empire, resistance
73
Stalker, P. (2000), Workers Without Frontiers, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Staples, W.G. (1997), The Culture of Surveillance: Discipline and Social Control in the United States, New York: St. Martin’s Press. Taylor, M. (2005), Religion, Politics, and the Christian Right: Post-9/11 Powers in American Empire, Philadelphia: Augsburg Fortress Press. Tololyan, K. (1996), ‘Rethinking diaspora(s): stateless power in the transnational moment,’ Diaspora, 5(1): 3–36. Unger, R. (1975), Knowledge and Politics, New York, The Free Press. Virilio, P. (1997), Open Sky, translated by Julie Rose, London: Verso. Waldenfels, B. (2002), ‘Levinas and the Face of the Other,’ in Simon Critchley and Robert Bernasconi (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Levinas, New York: Cambridge University Press. Welch, S. (2004), After Empire: The Art and Ethos of Enduring Peace, Philadelphia: Augsburg Fortress Press.
PART II
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
5. Kant and anti-war pacifism: the political theory of the post-9/11 world Osamu Kitamura I
INTRODUCTION1
The history of human beings is a sad chronicle of war and terrorism. Almost every year there is a conventional war or an act of terrorism somewhere in the world. On September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists hijacked four airplanes. Two of the planes hit the World Trade Center; a third plane hit the Pentagon. The fourth attack was aborted when the plane was crashed in the countryside. It is estimated that more than 3000 people were killed,2 making this the most devastating terrorist attack in United States history.3 The United States produced convincing evidence that Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network of ‘terrorists’ had full responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. After that, US and British forces attacked Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In 2003, US, British, and other coalition members’ troops invaded and occupied Iraq because the US government assumed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda. Many innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq were killed. Since 9/11, the US government has made ‘the war on terrorism’ its number one priority. However, 9/11 was a crime rather than an act of war. Therefore, the proper response is a criminal investigation and a prosecution within the rule of law. It cannot be justified that the United States overthrew the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq, even if they were tyrannical governments. It is clear that 9/11 as a crime against humanity requires a cosmopolitan vision of political responsibility. The peoples of the world need to envision a global rule of law and global justice (Archibugi and Young, 2003, pp. 160–62, 168). Since 9/11, it is necessary for us to understand terrorism and reflect upon how we should best respond to it. We need to answer the following questions: What is a morally justified response to terrorism? Is war a morally defensible response to the terrorism of 9/11? Is a morally defensible response to terrorism required to correct related failures of global justice and democracy? 77
78
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
It is clear that there are diverse perspectives on these questions (see, for example, Margolis, 2004; Rockmore, Margolis, and Marsoobian, 2005; Shanahan, 2005). However, this chapter attempts to answer these questions from a Kantian perspective and delve more deeply into the global political and philosophical issues of the post-9/11 world.
II
PACIFISM AND JUST WAR THEORY
In global political theory, an important position regarding war and terrorism is pacifism. Douglas P. Lackey distinguishes between four different types of pacifism: (1) universal pacifism-Christian pacifism, which views that all killing is wrong, (2) universal pacifism-Gandhian pacifism, which views that all violence is wrong, (3) private pacifism-Augustine’s limited pacifism, which views that personal violence is always wrong, but political violence is sometimes morally permissible, and (4) anti-war pacifism, which views that personal violence is sometimes morally permissible, but war is always morally wrong (Lackey 1989, pp. 6–24). The first type of universal pacifism, Christian pacifism, considers that all killing is wrong because all life is sacred. The Bible, God’s revealed words, says to all people ‘Thou shalt not kill’ (Exod. 20: 13). The Christian pacifist interprets this sentence to mean that no one should kill under any circumstances. Gandhi’s pacifism is an example of the second type of universal pacifism because he opposed all violence and developed his doctrine of non-violence from Hinduism. Gandhi also advocated satyagraha (truth grasping) in a continual struggle for justice. In the post-9/11 world, Christian and Gandhian pacifism encounter this problem, that is, killing or violence is required to save lives in some situations. For example, shouldn’t a terrorist who has hijacked an airplane be killed or restrained to prevent the hijacker from crashing the plane and killing all the passengers? The third type of pacifism, which condemns personal violence but allows political violence, is Augustine’s limited pacifism, which is often called ‘just war’ theory. This form of pacifism is also problematic when it comes to personal self-defense, because personal violence would be justified in defense of one’s life as in the case of the terrorist airplane hijacker (White, 2006, p. 2). In the early centuries of Christianity, the Christian pacifists thought that people should reject violence and refuse service in the Roman army. However, by the 5th century, the Roman Empire accepted and professed to Christianity. Therefore, Church Fathers needed a new doctrine of pacifism that avoided contradicting Christianity. This alternative view on war was the ‘just war’ theory. Under just war theory, it was permissible for the state to use military force against foreign enemies, and it also supported national
Kant and anti-war pacifism
79
defense. Historically, just war theory developed as an attempt to reconcile service in the armed forces for national defense with Christian values. In fact, Medieval Christian theologians such as Thomas Aquinas further developed the just war theory in terms of Christian values. In the 17th century, Hugo Grotius developed the theory in terms of natural law. The theory distinguishes between two questions about war. First, there is the question about the right to go to war (jus ad bellum). What are the conditions that justify going to war? Second, there is the question about the right conduct in war (jus in bello). How should combatants conduct themselves when fighting a war? (White, 2006, pp. 2–3). In other words, the just war theory is comprised of two parts: jus ad bellum, the justice of going to war, and jus in bello, justice in wartime. Jus ad bellum includes the following six principles: (1) just cause, (2) competent authority, (3) right intention, (4) limited objectives, (5) last resort, and (6) reasonable hope of success. Jus in bello includes the following two principles: (1) discrimination, and (2) proportionality (Amstutz, 1999, pp. 101–2). William V. O’Brien explains that the war in question must be for a just cause; the war must be declared by a competent authority for a public purpose, and there must be a right intention that aims at peace. The condition of just cause is usually subdivided into four more principles: the substance of the cause (e.g., self-defense), the form of the cause (defensive or offensive), the requirement of proportionality (the good achieved by war must be proportionate to the evil of war), and peaceful means of avoiding war must be exhausted (O’Brien, 1981). The just war theory advocates that war must fulfill the eight principles required for the justification and prosecution of war if it is to be considered moral. Therefore, the theory provides a moral framework for defining and assessing the use of force. The aim of the theory is not to justify war but to reduce the risk of war. However, history shows that this theory is often used to justify war and offers the reasons for going to war. In this sense, the just war theory is fundamentally a status quo doctrine rooted in the existing Westphalian order of sovereign states (for more detail, see Evans, 2005). As mentioned earlier, Lackey (1989) distinguishes among four different types of pacifism. The kind of pacifism that he supports is anti-war pacifism, which condemns all war as morally wrong but allows for personal violence in some situations. However, the stance of anti-war pacifism is also problematic in that some wars, such as the American Revolutionary War, are defended using the justification of defending oneself against personal violence. Thus, it seems that the anti-war pacifist viewpoint must also be defended in the era of the ‘war on terrorism.’4 People who believe in the right to personal self-defense would believe that some wars are morally justified. In fact, the idea of self-defense and the idea of just war are
80
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
commonly linked because defensive wars are described as just wars. Further, the justice of defensive war is inferred from the right of personal self-defense that is projected from the individual to the national level. However, anti-war pacifists reject this projection. Although they endorse the validity of personal self-defense, they think that no war can be justified. They believe that war always involves an inexcusable violation of rights. Therefore, it is clear for anti-war pacifists that all participation in war is morally wrong (White, 2006, pp. 15–16). James P. Sterba defends anti-war pacifism, mentioning that wars have brought much death and destruction and that many of those who have perished in wartime are non-combatants or innocents (Sterba, 2003, p. 209).5 For him, it is clear that the United States cannot be morally justified in going to war against Afghanistan and Iraq in response to unjustified terrorists acts. One of the main lessons we should have drawn from the 9/11 terrorists attacks and the ‘war on terrorism’ after 9/11 is that war and terrorism are always morally wrong. Furthermore, he points out that there is much that the United States can do if it wants to respond to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in accordance with global justice ideals, and not with the use of military force. He advocates that Americans have to do more to be good world citizens (ibid., pp. 210–21). From the anti-war perspective, war can never be a morally legitimate means to provide national security.
III KANT’S IDEA OF PEACE AND COSMOPOLITANISM It is clear that war inevitably involves killing, in particular state-sanctioned killing, through military means. In general, war is often allegedly waged for freedom and democracy, but there are countless innocent victims in modern war. War contains an ethical question for humanity. Therefore, we must criticize the morality of killing by the state. The violence of the state in many parts of the world is part of a ‘culture of violence’ that violates and devalues life and any sense of justice. Immanuel Kant believed that moral conduct for perpetual peace was essentially exemplary.6 Kant’s moral theory is different from Thomas Aquinas’s moral theory, which is based on the idea of a ‘final cause’ that defines the goal of everything, and utilitarianism, which is based on an assessment of the expected results of actions. Kant argued that we all know what it is to have a sense of moral obligation about what we ought to do. For Kant, searching for world peace was based on moral obligation. In other words, we ought to search for world peace. Reflecting on the experience of moral obligation, Kant found that morality implied the ‘categorical imperative’ (what is implied by an absolute
Kant and anti-war pacifism
81
moral demand). A categorical imperative tells us that we should do something, without any reference to the likely result (Kant [1788] 2002). Therefore, we should achieve world peace. To do that, Kant abandoned the just war theory and criticized just war theorists such as Grotius, Pufendorf, and Vattel. In ‘To Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch’ ([1795] 1983), he mentioned that: for while Hugo Grotius, Pufendorf, Vattel and others whose philosophically and diplomatically formulated codes do not and cannot have the slightest legal force (since nations do not stand under any common external constraints), are always piously cited in justification of a war of aggression (and who therefore provide only cold comfort), no example can be given of a nation having foregone its intention of going to war based on the arguments provided by such important men. (Kant [1795] 1983, p. 116).
He also pointed out that ‘the concept of the right of nations right to go to war is meaningless (for it would then be the right to determine the right not by independent, universally valid laws that restrict the freedom of everyone, but by one-sided maxims backed by force)’ (ibid.). Kant believed that each state was in a condition of constant war, but the rights of states with respect to each other concerned their right after war to constrain each other to leave this condition of war and so form a constitution that would establish perpetual peace. For Kant, war is the means by which a state prosecutes its rights with regard to other states through its own force. War contains not only states’ violations but also threatened hostility. He, therefore, considered war to be the source of the ‘greatest evils which oppress civilized nations’ (Kant [1786] 1991). On the other hand, he described perpetual peace as the ‘highest political good’ and an idea of practical reason towards which ‘we must act as if it is something real, though perhaps it is not’ (Kant [1797] 1996). It is also defined as an ‘end to hostilities,’ whether among human beings in the state of nature, or among states in a state of war. For Kant, it is ‘guaranteed by less an authority than the great artist Nature herself,’ but it is to be achieved by gradual reform in accordance with ‘firm principles’ (Kant [1795] 1983). These firm principles have the form of a treaty with two sections. In the first section, Kant presented the ‘preliminary articles’ for perpetual peace among nations in the guise of prohibitive laws, and in the second section, Kant presented the ‘definitive articles’ for perpetual peace. In other words, the universal principle of perpetual peace is specified in the six preliminary and three definitive articles. Kant’s ‘philosophical sketch’ of perpetual peace has the function to constitute the rules and legitimacy for internal and external state activity. The preliminary articles offer six requirements.7
82
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
No treaty of peace that tacitly reserves issues for a future war shall be held valid. No independent nation, be it large or small, may be acquired by another nation by inheritance, exchange, purchase, or gift. Standing armies (miles perpetuus) shall be gradually abolished. No national debt shall be contracted in connection with the foreign affairs of the nation. No nation shall forcibly interfere with the constitution and government of another. No nation at war with another shall permit such acts of war as shall make mutual trust impossible during some future time of peace: Such acts include the use of assassins (percussores), poisoners (venefici), breach of surrender, instigation of treason (perduellio) in the opposing nation, and so forth.
The definitive articles offer three requirements.8 1. 2. 3.
The civil constitution of every nation should be republican. The right of nations shall be based on a federation of free states. Cosmopolitan right shall be limited to conditions of universal hospitality.
The preliminary articles do not exclude war; it may still be necessary for a state to defend its sovereignty through military means, although this seems contradictory to the idea of peace. These articles exclude action that would make a peace treaty impossible. Kant mentioned that ‘standing armies are the cause of wars of aggression . . . The voluntary, periodic military training of citizens so that they can secure their homeland against external aggression is an entirely different matter’ (ibid.). In this sense, Kant is not a universal pacifist (absolute pacifist). However, we can consider him to be an anti-war pacifist because he insisted that war must be prohibited and he philosophically sketched out the plan for perpetual peace to overcome wars. If states want to set up the conditions for world peace, they ought to follow the articles. For Kant, like Hobbes, the state of nature is a state of war. On the analogy of domestic society, Kant considered that international society was under a constant state of war. In the 18th century, international society was seen as a system of interactions among sovereign states that saw each other as potential enemies (justi hostes).9 Therefore, war was a sad necessity in the state of nature. For the state of peace, the three definitive articles postulate that people institute the legal condition on three levels: domestic law (ius civitatis), international law (ius gentium) and cosmopolitan law (ius
Kant and anti-war pacifism
83
cosmopoliticum). He envisioned a global civil society with deliberations among people where conflicts must not be resolved by war. They would follow the rule of law. For Kant’s idea of cosmopolitan right (the right to visit), ‘distant parts of the world can establish with one another peaceful relations that will eventually become matters of public law, and the human race can gradually be brought closer and closer to a cosmopolitan constitution’ (ibid., p. 118). Cosmopolitan law would follow Kant’s categorical imperative to avoid war and promote peace. For Kant, moral practical reason pronounces the following veto: there shall be no war among individual human beings and among separate states. War is the opposite of peace and justice. He describes cosmopolitanism as the ‘matrix within which all the original capacities of the human race may develop.’ Furthermore, it is a necessary step towards the solution of the ‘greatest problem for the human species,’ which is that of ‘attaining a civil society which can administer justice universally’ (Kant [1784] 1991). It cannot be achieved within an individual state that participates in an antagonistic condition of international society. Therefore, he focuses on a cosmopolitan constitution of peace among states. For Kant, every state could expect to derive its security and rights not from its own power, but solely from a league of peace (foedus pacificum) as a ‘federation of free states.’ He also demands that each individual, and not just each state, produce a cosmopolitan society as the destiny of human beings. In this sense, each individual should direct their actions towards a global civil society that is united by cosmopolitan bonds for world peace. He mentions that: Because a (narrower or wider) community widely prevails among the Earth’s peoples, a transgression of rights in one place in the world is felt everywhere; consequently, the idea of cosmopolitan right is not fantastic and exaggerated, but rather an amendment to the unwritten code of national and international rights, necessary to the public rights of men in general. Only such amendment allows us to flatter ourselves with the thought that we are making continual progress towards perpetual peace. (Kant [1795] 1983, p. 119)
Kant’s rejection of the just war theory clearly points towards the future. If you want peace, prepare justice and peace (si vis pacem, para iustitiam et pacem). This is Kant’s anti-war pacifism.
IV
DEMOCRACY BEYOND BORDERS
It is often said that peace and democracy are two sides of the same coin, although some people criticize this view (see Doyle, 1997, for example).
84
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
One connection between peace and democracy is termed the ‘democratic peace theory.’ It is a theory of international relations, political theory, and philosophy that holds that (liberal) democracies never or almost never go to war with one another and that the spread of democracy to all countries would eliminate war. Its philosophical roots are traced to Kant. As mentioned earlier, Kant advocated that ‘the civil constitution of every nation should be republican’ (the first definitive article). Kant reasoned that a republican (or democratic) peace would occur because citizens, whose consent would be required in order to decide that war should be declared, would be very cautious about commencing such a risky game. They would also be calamities of war. Until the late Enlightenment, the word ‘democracy’ usually meant direct democracy, which was treated with suspicion and regarded as a negative idea because demos were regarded as irrational people. Kant also considered that democracy was necessary to despotism. However, his idea of ‘republicanism’ is almost the same as representative democracy in a contemporary sense. He mentioned that republicanism ‘accords with the principles of the freedom of the members of a society (as men) . . . of the dependence of everyone on a single, common [source of] legislation (as subject) . . . and . . . accords with the law of the equality of them all (as citizens). Thus . . . republicanism is the original foundation of all forms of civil constitution’ (Kant ([1795] 1983, pp. 112–13). For him, republicanism is that ‘political principle whereby executive power (the government) is separated from legislative power’ (ibid., p. 114). Although Kant’s claim of a separation of powers is not unique in the history of Western political thought like the political thought of Locke and Montesquieu, the idea that republics tend to be peaceful is innovative. However, Machiavelli, for example, believed that republics such as Rome were by nature excellent war-makers and empire-builders. From a Kantian perspective, democracy is only one of several conditions, including economic interdependence and international organization, necessary for world peace. In the history of international political theory, the hope of a democratic peace shows in Woodrow Wilson’s slogan: ‘a world safe for democracy.’ His plans for the peace after World War I were strongly similar to Kant’s proposal, such as a ‘league of peace’ (foedus pacificum) and ‘cosmopolitan law’ (ius cosmopoliticum). Although Wilson’s Message to Congress (the ‘Fourteen Points’) on April 2, 1917 stated that it was necessary to remove economic barriers between peaceful nations and provide for a League of Nations, he also acknowledged ‘a war to end war.’10 Many liberal international political theorists have confirmed Kant’s peace theory using empirical methods. Bruce Russett points out that ‘democracies are unlikely to engage in any kind of militarized disputes with each other or
Kant and anti-war pacifism
85
to let any such disputes escalate into war’ (Russett, 2000, p. 232). However, criticism of the democratic peace theory should be noted. Democracies do go to war, although it is only with autocracies. The easy example is the United States, which is both a leading democracy and the country that has most often been at war since 1945. Nevertheless, for now there is broad agreement among international political theorists that democracies have peaceful relations with one another. Even if a world in which all countries were democratic did not produce perpetual peace, as Kant believed it would, it might produce a situation of predominant peace (see, for example, Huntley, 1998). Therefore, we should promote democracy globally. John Rawls, a follower of Kant, points out that the possibility of democratic peace is not incompatible with actual democracies, which are marked by considerable injustice, oligarchic tendencies, and monopolistic interests. Democracies often intervene in the affairs of smaller or weaker countries. However, to prove as much, he thinks that the idea of a democratic peace needs to be made more precise, and he formulates a guiding hypothesis: (1) To the extent that each of the reasonably just constitutional democratic societies fully satisfies the five features (briefly described below) of such a regime— and its citizens understand and accept its political institutions with their history and achievements—the peace among them is made more secure. (2) To the extent that each of the liberal societies fully satisfies the conditions described in (1) above, all are less likely to engage in war with nonliberal outlaw states, except on grounds of legitimate self-defense (or in the defense of their legitimate allies), or intervention in severe cases to protect human rights. (Rawls, 1999, p. 49)
Democratic peace theory under a liberal tradition is strongly opposed to the realist idea of the balance of power.11 It has come to be more widely accepted in American foreign policy in recent years. Former President Bill Clinton stated that: ‘Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere. Democracies don’t attack each other.’12 President George W. Bush said that: ‘And the reason why I’m so strong on democracy is democracies don’t go to war with each other. . . . I’ve got great faith in democracies to promote peace. And that’s why I’m such a strong believer that the way forwards in the Middle East, the broader Middle East, is to promote democracy.’13 It is true that the democratic peace theory is used to justify wars against non-democracies. Some point out that the democratic peace theory was used to justify the Iraq War in 2003; others argue that this justification was used only after the war had already started.14
86
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
Regardless, this justification is part of the political rhetoric for the United States’ military intervention. History shows that attempts to create democracies by using external force have often failed eventually. It is, therefore, necessary to consider a critical issue on global democratization by armed invasion. There is a certain contradiction in terms in this statement. The attempt to bring democracy to a country through armed invasion is different from the attempt to promote a people’s self-determination through democracy assistance such as training of legislators and electoral commissioners.15 Democracy is not cheap, but there is a tension within the whole project of democracy promotion. If democracy means that people take responsibility for the running of their own affairs, then it is wrong for democratization by armed invasion as in Iraq. As mentioned earlier, in the fifth preliminary article, Kant opposed military intervention because it interfered with state sovereignty (autonomy). For Kant, military intervention was ethically wrong.16 Kantian anti-war pacifism argues that the decision to go to war requires deliberative democracy, which emphasizes the need to justify decisions made by citizens and their representatives, and to obtain their support. Therefore, supporting national and transnational peace movements is a very important part of avoiding war. If the democratic peace theory is correctly understood, it may actually be an argument against a ‘democratic crusade’ (see, for example, Russett, 2005). The Iraq experiment has demonstrated the acute contradictions of imposing democracy on a country, even a tyrannical regime, by armed forces. It is clear that going to war is the most consequential decision that a government makes. However, when President George W. Bush decided that the United States would soon take military action against Saddam Hussein, he had to justify the decision not only to the citizens of the United States, but also to the citizens of the world because his decision obviously affected many other people in addition to US citizens. Even if he attempted to justify military action against Saddam Hussein, a preventive war against Iraq cannot be justified in terms of international law and ethics. Therefore, it seems that deliberative democracy, which emphasizes the need to justify decisions to citizens who have to live with the result of collective decisions, would extend its requirements to the global level. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson mention that in our increasingly interdependent world the practical and ethical arguments for confining deliberative democracy to the domestic politics of single societies can go only so far (Gutmann and Thompson, 2004, p. 37). Gutmann and Thompson take a more cosmopolitan perspective. They insist that the difference between domestic and international society is often exaggerated because many domestic societies are multicultural. Furthermore, Gutmann and Thompson point out that:
Kant and anti-war pacifism
87
the ethical argument for limiting deliberative democracy to particular states may be correct for a wide range of domestic decisions, such as policies on taxation, education, and welfare, but is less obviously correct for other decisions, such as policies on war, trade, immigration, and economic development, which significantly and directly affect people in other countries as least as much as they affect citizens themselves. The decision to go to war against Iraq affected Iraqis more than Americans. (Ibid.)
On these issues, the distinction between domestic and significantly affected places is eroding. In this sense, deliberative democracy ought to promote global public deliberation on war and peace. The principles of global public deliberation would prevent countries such as the United States from going to war. If people as global citizens practice ‘global’ deliberative democracy, they can create peace and a just world order (Kitamura, 2002). The idea of global democracy proposes global governance in which people can engage directly, as citizens of the world, rather than only as citizens of a particular country. Since many of the forces that shape people’s conditions of life have moved beyond national borders, democratic arrangements to control them can no longer be confined to the nation-state. The cosmopolitan ideal embodies a number of components, including: democratizing existing international organizations such as the United Nations to make them more representative and accountable, developing new mechanisms for the participation and representation of them at the global level, and extending the reach and legal enforceability of human rights regimes. Without extending democracy in this way, it will not be possible to realize Kant’s cosmopolitan ideal, which is based on our interconnected world (see, for example, Archibugi and Held, 1995; Held, 1995). It seems that Kant’s cosmopolitan ideal can be realized through the associations and networks of global civil society, which are a key component of anti-war pacifism and democracy (Kaldor, 2003; Keane, 2003). Since 9/11, a network of peace movements that cut across national borders has been developing. Global civil society would provide an alternative vehicle for deliberation to make world peace. As James Bohman points out, only the cosmopolitan public sphere can become the location for ‘the public use of reason,’ proposed by Kant, by global civil society. This public sphere influences the deliberation for world peace (Bohman, 1997, p. 195).
V. CONCLUSION: TOWARD GLOBAL JUSTICE AND PEACE It is argued that Kant’s metaphysics of freedom as a shared idea of practical reason underlies the cosmopolitan scope of his theory of justice.
88
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
Furthermore, his account of political obligation is cosmopolitan, assigning priority to the global rather than the domestic context. Katrin Flikschuh suggests that ‘a principal appeal of Kant’s metaphysical framework for global thinking today lies in the general parameters it identifies for thought and action within the constraints of which the integration is possible of otherwise disparate aspects of global justice’ (Flikschuh, 2000, p. 198). It may be naive to think that poverty itself causes terrorism, but it would be equally nearsighted to assume that the indifference of wealthier people to the plight of underprivileged people does not contribute to a growing resentment against inequality. It seems that a crime against humanity, such as terrorism, requires a cosmopolitan vision of political responsibility and social justice. Therefore, the United States ought to do more from the viewpoint of responsible global citizenry. It must do its fair share to redistribute resources from wealthier people to underprivileged people as global social justice requires. Martha C. Nussbaum argues that terrorism makes us pay attention to distant and underprivileged people. She notes, however, that most of the preventable suffering and death in the world is not caused by terrorism. Rather, it is caused by malnutrition, lack of education, and all the ills connected to poverty (Nussbaum, 2003, pp. 229–52). Furthermore, Nussbaum thinks that the idea that there should be an ongoing ‘war on terrorism’ is dangerous because it would fail to connect us to the daily sufferings of underprivileged people. She understands the grief for the victims of the attacks against the World Trade Center, but she claims that we need to cultivate a culture of critical compassion that is constrained by respect for human dignity and by a vivid sense of the real losses and needs of others. It also means peace, human security, and kyosei (conviviality).17 Failures of global justice would provide a breeding ground for terrorism. Therefore, global justice and peace have become the most pressing issues of the post-9/11 world. While half of the world’s population continues to live on less than US$2 per day, there are growing demands for a world where peace and democracy are permanent features in all our lives. Global justice requires universal respect for basic human rights and shared pluralistic global citizenship. The idea of global justice is inspired by the work of John Rawls, although he thought that no principles of distributive justice applied globally.18 Kantians regard the alleviation of poverty as a duty. It is clear that personal charity is not sufficient. Therefore, the question of alleviating poverty becomes a global political and ethical question. What are the requirements of a just world order? (For more detail see Thompson, 1992; Falk, 2004.) It is necessary to promote democracy and to distribute resources that enable the maintenance of individual liberty together with peaceful relations among peoples based on global
Kant and anti-war pacifism
89
justice.19 However, it is not merely a matter of redistributing resources but of empowering underprivileged people. Global justice is one of the most frequently examined themes in global political theory, and there are different normative approaches, such as Kantianism, utilitarianism, and global justice (see, for example, Caney, 2005). Therefore, realizing global justice is a difficult task because of the lack of agreement about such a norm. As Stanley Hoffmann has observed, although there is generally a consensus within national society about what constitutes justice, there is ‘a cacophony of standards’ in international society (Hoffmann, 1981, pp. 164–5). Because of the moral pluralism of international society, the quest for global justice might involve conflict within or among states. Nevertheless, liberal internationalism,20 which emphasizes the peacefulness of democracies and the universality of human rights, contributes to the development of the cosmopolitan idea of global justice. Kantian cosmopolitanism seeks to promote human dignity by giving priority to global or cosmopolitan bonds and is concerned with global justice and global peace.21 For Kantian cosmopolitanism, states have a moral obligation to defend and protect the well-being and basic rights of individuals. In this sense, state boundaries are not ethically significant because cosmopolitan thinkers view states as legitimate political actors only to the extent that they protect human rights (Beitz, 1979). The cosmopolitan idea of global justice would remedy global injustice and peacelessness. Global justice, therefore, provides an ethical approach to the pursuit of peace and the protection of human rights. After 9/11, international norms of human rights came under threat, although the United States’ unilateralism regarding security and human rights is not new. The events of 9/11 and their aftermath have hurt human rights efforts to improve the living conditions of underprivileged people. Furthermore, since the 9/11 attacks and the ‘war on terrorism,’ human rights have become a luxury. War is not necessary in defense of liberal democracy, and it is time to move away from the war tone towards the peace tone based on respect for human rights (see, for example, Wilson, 2005). Kant’s cosmopolitan ideal would contribute to the future removal of war, global injustice, and human rights violation. In this sense, it is often argued that Kant’s cosmopolitan ideal allows intervention to protect human rights. Some philosophers such as Jürgen Habermas think that humanitarian intervention can be defended because human rights must be protected in terms of cosmopolitan law (Habermas, 1997). However, this argument contradicts Kant’s idea of peace. As mentioned earlier (fifth preliminary article), Kant himself insisted that ‘no nation shall forcibly interfere with the constitution and government of another.’
90
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
For the Kantian anti-war pacifist, a ‘humanitarian’ military intervention is an absolute evil. The war against Iraq in the name of a just war and human rights protection cannot be justified. The human rights situation of the post-9/11 world is becoming worse. One of the problems is that the selective use of human rights was illustrated by the appeal to ‘human rights’ and ‘democracy’ made by coalition forces for the purpose of justifying the military intervention in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Serious human rights violations were committed in the context of the military interventions in both countries. Furthermore, external imposition of democracy may be able to create the conditions for a transition from authoritarianism to democracy, but internal factors, such as the rule of law, constitutional and political legitimacy of the state, an elected government, and a pluralistic civil society determine the sustainability of democracy. No country has the right to use military force for sustainable democracy (Feyter, 2005, pp. 66–89).
VI
EPILOGUE
In the post-9/11 world, it is necessary to realize global justice and promote human dignity. The notion of human rights is at the heart of the striving for global justice as a common standard of achievement for all. Human rights violations in the context of anti-terrorism measures cannot be justified. In this sense, alliances among global social movements, such as anti-war, peace, human rights, and anti-globalization movements are needed. A new global consciousness through global social movements is emerging from below. While nation-states remain important, the development of these global social movements demonstrates that we are entering a cosmopolitan phase, and their political action is becoming more open, participatory and direct.22 The role of global social movements, therefore, provides the potential for global civil society23 as a source of global justice and peace. The cosmopolitan strand is developed by Kant’s idea of peace.24 He elaborated on the role of active citizens in holding governments accountable and reducing the risks of war, although he feared that rebellion, including civil disobedience, would lead to anarchy and war. As mentioned earlier, Kant suggested that the citizens of a state who must bear the costs of war would reject war and contest its foreign policy. Kant, therefore, envisaged a zone of peace developing among democratic states. This is Kantian antiwar pacifism. Liberal ideals of citizenship can be extended to the global level, and contemporary democratic theories more easily see potential for deliberation at the global level and may support global citizens’ action and
Kant and anti-war pacifism
91
participation.25 Deliberative democracy at the global level is alert to the global dimension of politics, and therefore ‘global’ deliberative democracy tends to endorse global protests such as the anti-war movement (Young, 2003). In the post-9/11 world, peace movements that transcend local and national boundaries can be found. Global peace movements show direct action against the ‘war on terrorism.’ These movements make global public protest against not only war itself but also global injustice (see, for example, Carter, 2005, pp. 93–6). These movements would reduce the gap between Kant’s cosmopolitan ideal and reality. In global political theory, Kant and his anti-war pacifism may offer a better path for the future and give us deeper insights into our past and present. Kantian anti-war pacifists who participate in global peace movements oppose the ‘war on terrorism’ and hope that global public opinion becomes peace-loving. We have experience of the global protest spilling out onto the streets of major cities such as New York City, London, and Tokyo, where tens of millions demonstrated against the ‘war on terrorism.’ These protests have given birth to the biggest anti-war peace movement in history, and have also led to a greater convergence of peace movements and global justice movements. The voice of global peace and justice movements cannot be ignored. ‘Global’ civil society had a major role in these movements.26 In this sense, a profound democratization of the international state system is required, and it cannot be achieved without the emergence and development of a global civil society that can defeat the present undemocratic, unjust, and inhumane world order. It is impossible to predict how far Kant’s cosmopolitanism will progress, but it is not inconceivable that a century from now humankind will follow the rule of cosmopolitan law, which provides a legal framework for global justice and peace. In ‘Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose’ ([1784] 1991), Kant foresaw the possibility of it and predicted that a cosmopolitan society would be realized to secure order and peace. That is, however, far from certain. Therefore, there are those who doubt that today’s trend toward cosmopolitanism will continue into the future. Moreover, there are those who are deeply skeptical about the cosmopolitan ideal (see, for example, Walzer, 1994; 1996; Kymlicka, 2001; Miller, 2002). Even if a cosmopolitan society cannot be realized, Kant insisted in ‘To Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch’ ([1795] 1983) that ‘perpetual peace is no empty idea, but a task that, gradually completed, steadily approaches its goal (since the times during which equal progress occurs will, we hope, become ever shorter).
92
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
NOTES 1.
I would like to thank Shin Chiba, Minoru Kitamura, and Hiroshi Kitamura for their helpful comments on a draft version of this chapter. 2. For more detail, see National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (2004). 3. A large number of people compared this to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but it seems to me that these two events cannot be compared. See, for example, Griffin (2004). 4. The phrase ‘war on terrorism’ is used by the current US government to describe its ongoing efforts to combat terrorism. I use this phrase here in quotation marks because ongoing efforts to combat terrorist activities that constitute such a war are problematic and cannot be legitimized. 5. Pacifism and just war theory have dominated discussions of war and terrorism in Western political thought. In particular, both of these positions developed in the tradition of Christianity. They are different from the Islamic doctrine of jihad (holy war). In the post-9/11 world, Sterba attempts to further defend anti-war pacifism by developing it alongside just war theory. In other words, he attempts to reconcile anti-war pacifism with just war theory. For the practical requirements, he calls the view that emerges from this reconciliation ‘just war pacifism’ though it is controversial. 6. In this sense, Kant supported capital punishment because he thought that death was the proper punishment for murder. 7. The following passages draw on Kant ([1795] 1983, pp. 107–11). 8. Ibid., pp. 111–19. As for the first definitive article of perpetual peace, the reason why every state should be republican (‘democratic’ in a contemporary sense) is that ‘if (as must inevitably be the case, given this form of constitution) the consent of citizenry is required in order to determine whether or not there will be war, it is natural that they consider all its calamities before committing themselves to so risky a game. (Among these are doing the fighting themselves, paying the costs of war from their own resources, having to repair at great sacrifice the war’s devastation, and, finally, the ultimate evil that would make peace itself better, never being able—because of new and constant wars— to expunge the burden of debt.)’ (p. 113) As for the second definitive article, ‘the concept of the right of nations as a right to go to war is meaningless. . . . Reason can provide related nations with no other means for emerging from the state of lawlessness, which consists solely of war, than that they give up their savage (lawless) freedom, just as individual persons do, and, by accommodating themselves to the constrains of common law, establish a nation of peoples (civitas gentium) that (continually growing) will finally include all the people of the earth. But they do not will to do this because it does not conform to their idea of the right of nations . . . So (if everything is not to be lost) in place of the positive idea of a world republic they put only the negative surrogate of an enduring, ever expanding federation that prevents war and curbs the tendency of that hostile inclination to defy the law, though there will always be constant danger of their breaking loose.’ (pp. 117–18) 9. This situation is similar to Carl Schmitt’s understanding of politics: the friend/enemy distinction. However, Schmitt criticized Kant’s attempt to mitigate wars. See, for example, Schmitt (1976). Also, see Brunkhorst (2004). 10. See Wilson (1917) in http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4943/. Accessed 25 January 2008. 11. The realist idea of the balance of power is rooted in the political thought of Thucydides and Hume. Hume mentioned that ‘the maxim of preserving the balance of power is founded so much on common sense and obvious reasoning that it is impossible it could altogether have escaped antiquity, where we find in other particulars so many marks of deep penetration and discernment’ (Hume, [1752] 1985). On the other hand, Kant pointed out that ‘for a permanent universal peace by means of a so-called European balance of power is a pure illusion, like Swift’s story of the house which the builder had constructed in such perfect harmony with all the law of equilibrium that it collapsed as soon as a sparrow alighted on it’ ([1793] 1991). Therefore, he proposed
Kant and anti-war pacifism
12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.
19. 20. 21.
22. 23. 24. 25.
26.
93
a universal federation that all the individual states would voluntarily submit their power and obey laws. Bill Clinton, State of the Union Address (1994) in http://www.presidential rhetoric.com/historiespeeches/clinton/stateoftheunion.1994.htm. Accessed 25 January 2008. President and Prime Minister Blair Discussed Iraq, Middle East (2004) in http:// www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/11/20041112-5.html. Accessed 25 January 2008. The just war theory is also used to justify wars against non-democracies, in particular the ‘war on terrorism.’ See, for example, Elshtain (2003). Not only Western governments but also non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have devoted an increasing proportion of funds to democracy assistance. NGOs are regarded as having a key role to play in the defense of citizens’ rights. Brian Orend, however, explores the ethics of war and peace from a Kantian perspective, emphasizing human rights protection, the rule of international law, and a fully global concept of justice, and defends a theory of just war. See Orend (2000). For the idea of kyosei (conviviality), see Yoichiro Murakami, Noriko Kawamura, and Shin Chiba (2005). In Murakami et al.’s book, kyosei means social responsibility to live together peaceably. See, for example, Rawls (1971; 1999). Rawls thought that the cosmopolitan view of justice or global justice is concerned with the well-being of individuals, while the Law of Peoples represented justice and stability for the right reasons in liberal and decent societies, living as members of a society of well-ordered peoples. In this context, global justice means global distributive justice. For the notion of global distributive justice, see Jones (1999); O’Neill (2000); Pogge (2001). For more detail, see ‘Liberal Internationalism: Peace, War and Democracy’ in Doyle (1997). Communitarianism, by contrast, accepts the existing community of states as normative and holds that the quest for human dignity is best secured within and through each of the distinct communities in international society. Under communitarianism, the state can ensure justice domestically and peace internationally. Therefore, it is doubtful that global justice can exist. For a comparative assessment of cosmopolitanism and communitarianism, see Brown (1992); Thompson (1992). For the theory and practice of global social movements, see Cohen and Rai (2000). Many (international) political theorists who discuss global civil society often tend to start from the perspective of global social movements and NGO networks. A focus on global civil society suggests the practice of ‘globalization from below.’ However, it is clear that Kant gave weight to respect for state sovereignty. See, for example, Edwards and Gaventa (2001). It deals with the most significant social movements and NGO networks, such as the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and Jubilee 2000, influencing the course of world politics today, and it also discusses the agendas associated with civil society that will help to determine the future of global governance. These movements also protest the strong link between neo-liberal globalization and militarism. For more detail, see TNI Actual: Quarterly Newsletter from the Transnational Institute, 6, 2003, http://www.tni.org/actual/actual6.pdf.
REFERENCES Amstutz, Mark R. (1999), International Ethics: Concepts, Theories, and Cases in Global Politics, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Archibugi, Daniele and David Held (eds) (1995), Cosmopolitan Democracy: An Agenda for a New World Order, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
94
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
Archibugi, Daniele and Iris Marion Young (2003), ‘Envisioning a Global Rule of Law,’ in James P. Sterba (ed.) Terrorism and International Justice, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 158–70. Beitz, Charles (1979), Political Theory and International Relations, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bohman, James (1997), ‘The Public Spheres of the World Citizen,’ in James Bohman and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (eds) Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant’s Cosmopolitan Ideal, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 179–200. Brown, Chris (1992), International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches, Lanham, MD: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Brunkhorst, Hauke (2004), ‘The rights to war: hegemonial geopolitics or civic constitutionalism?,’ Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, 11(4), 512–26. Caney, Simon (2005), Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carter, April (2005), Direct Action and Democracy Today, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Cohen, Robin and Shirin M. Rai (eds) (2000), Global Social Movements, London: The Athlone Press. Doyle, Michael W. (1997), Ways of War and Peace: Realism, Liberalism and Socialism, New York: W.W. Norton. Edwards, Michael and John Gaventa (eds) (2001), Global Citizen Action, London: Earthscan Publications. Elshtain, Jean Bethke (2003), Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World, New York: Basic Books. Evans, Mark (ed.) (2005), Just War Theory: A Reappraisal, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Falk, Richard A. (2004), The Declining World Order: America’s Imperial Geopolitics, New York: Routledge. Feyter, Koen De (2005), Human Rights: Social Justice in the Age of the Market, London: Zed Books. Flikschuh, Kartin (2000), Kant and Modern Political Philosophy, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Griffin, David Ray (2004), The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11, New York: Interlink Publishing Group. Gutmann, Amy and Dennis Thompson (2004), Why Deliberative Democracy?, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Habermas, Jürgen (1997), ‘Kant’s Idea of Perpetual Peace, with the Benefit of Two Hundred Years’ Hindsight,’ in James Bohman and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (eds) Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant’s Cosmopolitan Ideal, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 113–54. Held, David (1995), Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Hoffmann, Stanley (1981), Duties beyond Borders: On the Limits and Possibilities of Ethical International Politics, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Hume, David [1752] (1985), ‘Political Discourses’, in Eugene F. Miller (ed.), Essays: Moral, Political and Literary, London: Liberty Fund. Huntley, James Robert (1998), Pax Democratica: A Strategy for the Twenty-First Century, New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Kant and anti-war pacifism
95
Jones, Charles (1999), Global Justice: Defending Cosmopolitanism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kaldor, Mary (2003), Global Civil Society: An Answer to War, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Kant, Immanuel [1784] (1991), ‘Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose,’ in Hans Siegbert Reiss (ed.) Kant Political Writings, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Kant [1786] (1991), ‘Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History,’ in Hans Siegbert Reiss (ed.) Kant Political Writings, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Kant [1788] (2002), Critique of Practical Reason, translated by Werner S. Pluhar, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Kant [1793] (1991), ‘On the Common Saying: “This May Be True in Theory, but It Does Not Apply in Practice,” ’ in Hans Siegbert Reiss (ed.) Kant Political Writings, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Kant [1797] (1996), The Metaphysics of Morals, translated by Mary Gregor (ed.) Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Kant [1795] (1983), ‘To Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,’ translated by Ted Humphrey, in Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Keane, John (2003), Global Civil Society?, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Kitamura, Osamu (2002), ‘Peace Education for Global Citizenship: A Cosmopolitan Perspective,’ Paper presented at the 19th General Conference of the International Peace Research Association, Kyon Hee University, Swon, South Korea, July 1–5, 2002. Kymlicka, Will (2001), Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lackey, Douglas P. (1989), The Ethics of War and Peace, New York: Prentice Hall. Margolis, Joseph (2004), Moral Philosophy after 9/11, Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press. Miller, David (2002), Citizenship and National Identity, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Murakami, Yoichiro, Noriko Kawamura, and Shin Chiba (eds) (2005), Toward a Peaceful Future: Redefining Peace, Security, and Kyosei from a Multidisciplinary Perspective, Pullman, WA: The Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (2004), The 9/11 Commission Report, New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Nussbaum, Martha C. (2003), ‘Compassion and Terror,’ in James P. Sterba (ed.) Terrorism and International Justice, Oxford: Oxford University Press. O’Brien, William V. (1981), The Conduct of Just and Limited War, Westport: Praeger Publishers. O’Neill, Onora (2000), Bounds of Justice, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Orend, Brian (2000), War and International Justice: A Kantian Perspective, Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Pogge, Thomas W. (ed.) (2001), Global Justice, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Rawls, John (1971), A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
96
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
Rawls, John (1999), The Law of Peoples, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rockmore, Tom, Joseph Margolis, and Armen T. Marsoobian (eds) (2005), The Philosophical Challenge of September 11, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Russett, Bruce (2000), ‘How Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations Create a System for Peace’, in Charles W. Kegley, Jr. and Eugene R. Wittkopf (eds) The Global Agenda: Issues and Perspectives, Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. Russett, Bruce (2005), ‘Bushwhacking the democratic peace’, International Studies Perspectives, 6(4): 395–408. Schmitt, Carl (1976), The Concept of the Political, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Shanahan, Timothy (2005), Philosophy 9/11: Thinking about the War on Terrorism, Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company. Sterba, James P. (ed.) (2003), Terrorism and International Justice, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thompson, Janna (1992), Justice and World Order: A Philosophical Inquiry, London: Routledge. Walzer, Michael (1994), Thick and Thin: Moral Arguments at Home and Abroad, London: University of Notre Dame Press. Walzer, Michael (1996), ‘Spheres of Affection,’ in Martha C. Nussbaum et al., For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism, Boston, MA: Beacon Press. White, James E. (2006), Contemporary Moral Problems: War and Terrorism, Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. Wilson, Richard Ashby (ed.) (2005), Human Rights in the ‘War on Terror,’ New York: Cambridge University Press. Young, Iris Marion (2003), ‘Activist Challenges to Deliberative Democracy,’ in James S. Fishkin and Peter Laslett (eds) Debating Deliberative Democracy, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 102–20. Young, Iris Marion (2007), Global Challenges: War, Self-Determination and Responsibility for Justice, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
6. Christian pacifism after 9/11: a Mennonite perspective Atsuhiro Katano I
INTRODUCTION
On March 9, 2006, a slain body was found in western Baghdad, Iraq. It was that of Tom Fox, 54 years of age, from Clearbrook, VA, with his hands tied and gunshot wounds to the head and chest. He was a Quaker and an active member of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), a non-governmental organization founded in 1988 and committed to reducing violence through ‘getting in the way’ (i.e., civil intervention) in areas of lethal conflict around the world. Fox was abducted, along with three other colleagues, on November 26, 2005. They appeared in several videos aired by the Al Jazeera network in December 2005 and January 2006. The last video was aired in March 2006 and showed all the hostages except Fox. On March 23, 2006, the other three hostages were found in western Baghdad and freed by US and British soldiers. None of the captors was present and no shots were fired at the time of rescue. CPT was initiated by the so-called Historic Peace Churches, namely the Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren. CPT has been present in Iraq since October 2002 to provide first-hand independent reports from the region, to work with detainees of both US and Iraqi forces, and to train others, including Muslims, in non-violent intervention and human rights violations documentation. Fox became interested in CPT after seeing news coverage of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Reminded of the vision of Quaker leader George Fox, he witnessed that he saw the world in darkness, devastated by the attacks and that he strongly wished to find some way to move the world in the direction of light. Then he joined CPT, ‘giving voice to an alternative way of making peace, a way that seems unusual to the world but that takes Jesus’ call seriously’ (Huebner, 2006). On the day before his abduction, he reflected on a fundamental question, ‘Why are we here?’:
97
98
Pacifism, philosophy, religion If I understand the message of God, his response to that question is that we are to take part in the creation of the Peaceable Realm of God. Again, if I understand the message of God, how we take part in the creation of this realm is to love God with all our heart, our mind and our strength and to love our neighbors and enemies as we love God and ourselves. In its essential form, different aspects of love bring about the creation of the realm. (Fox, 2005)
Fox became the first CPT member to fall victim to violence. After a temporary leave and careful discernment, the team relocated its work to Suleimaniya, a Kurdish area in northern Iraq, in late 2006. Its involvement with peacemaking is just one of the various embodiments of Christian pacifism. In this chapter, I would like to explore the faith and practice of Christian pacifism from a Mennonite perspective by reviewing the historical origins of, and the recent developments in, the Mennonite pacifist position, and then look at the impacts of the 9/11 incidents upon it.
II HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF MENNONITE PACIFISM The emergence of the Mennonite Church has to be placed in the historical context of the Radical Reformation, particularly the so-called Anabaptist movement, in 16th-century Europe. One of the origins of the movement was in Zurich, Switzerland, where Ulrich Zwingli initiated the Swiss Protestant reformation. Some of his followers were convinced, through serious Bible study, that the reformation movement in Zurich was inconsistent with Bible teachings concerning the practice of infant baptism and the church’s involvement with politics. At a small meeting in January 1525, they practiced what they believed, that is to say, they baptized each other as an expression of voluntary commitment to the teachings of Jesus Christ. For the institutionalized churches, both Catholic and Protestant, voluntary church membership was considered a dangerous threat to the social order. Adult baptism was outlawed, and many Anabaptists were persecuted, driven from their homes and countries, and martyred. By 1530, most of the founding leaders had been killed. From the beginning, many Anabaptists took the biblical commandment of ‘Thou shall not kill’ (Exodus 20:13) seriously and so were unwilling to fight in self-defense. Although there were some groups of militaristic Anabaptists, such as the Munsterites and Batenburgers, they were eventually destroyed on account of their very willingness to fight. On the other hand, non-resistant groups survived by emigrating to neutral cities or nations, such as Strasbourg, Moravia, Russia, and North America. This history of martyrdom and emigration has played a profound part in the development of Mennonite pacifism.
Christian pacifism after 9/11
99
The name Mennonite comes from Menno Simons (1496–1561), a former Catholic priest in the Netherlands. He had heard of the Anabaptist movement and started rethinking his Catholic faith. He joined the movement in 1536, at the age of 40, and his group was initially called Menists and then Mennonites. For Anabaptists and Mennonites, the social context of persecution became the basis for their theological exploration, and Jesus’s teaching, ‘Resist not evil’ (Matthew 5:39) became a primary commandment. The text was interpreted as an instruction to separate from the world and for noninvolvement in its government. Traditionally, Mennonite pacifism has been understood as non-resistance, emphasizing a humble, passive, and withdrawing attitude, such as refusing to institute lawsuits, not joining labor unions, and conscientious objection to military conscription. Guy F. Hershberger, a noted 20th-century interpreter of Anabaptist/ Mennonite non-resistance, made an effort to distinguish between modern humanistic pacifism and New Testament non-resistance. First, in biblical non-resistance, peace cannot be an end in itself, but is the fruit of the Christian gospel. While modern pacifism seeks socio-political reconstruction, non-resistance focuses primarily on conversion, the radical change of the human heart. Second, modern pacifism is often too optimistic about the possibility of world peace, but lacks sufficient recognition of the reality of human sinfulness. Third, modern pacifism tends to assume that Christian principles, as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount for example, can be applied to the actual constitution of the worldly state. And finally, modern pacifism affirms non-violent direct action, a strategy of coercion without physical force for the achievement of social ends, thereby compromising with the coercive methods of the state, and consequently watering down the high ethic of the New Testament (Hershberger, 1959, pp. 104–5). Behind the major affirmation of non-resistance was the so-called ‘two kingdom theology,’ which emphasized the contrast between God’s wholeness and the world’s fallenness, starkly separating Church and state. The sixth article of the Schleitheim Confession, the first Swiss-Anabaptist theological statement adopted in 1527, claimed that ‘the sword,’ namely the political body and military force, was ordained by God to punish wrongdoers and to maintain the social order, but it is ‘outside the perfection of Christ.’ And in the perfection of Christ, believers should follow the footsteps of the one who suffered on the cross rather than the one who ruled over the world by the sword (The Schleitheim Text, 1973). For holding this attitude of separation and withdrawal from general society, especially in North America, Mennonites came to be referred to as ‘the quiet in the land.’
100
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
III RECENT DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN PEACEMAKING It was in the 20th century that the Mennonite tradition of non-resistance was challenged. On the one hand, there was a strong affirmation of the nonresistant position by intellectual exponents such as John Horsch, Daniel Kauffman, C. Henry Smith, and Guy F. Hershberger. On the other hand, critiques of non-resistance emerged within the Mennonite faith community. Members such as J. Lawrence Burkholder and Gordon D. Kaufman criticized non-resistance as ‘psychological asceticism, resulting in an unhealthy stance of withdrawal and self-denial,’ ‘an inadequate social ethic, unable to respond to competing neighbor claims or the need for the protection of third parties,’ and challenged that ‘the larger questions of justice and social responsibility are bypassed in order to preserve personal purity’ (Burkholder, 1990a, p. 637). Challenges came from the outside world as well. The modernization taking place in the surrounding society affected the Mennonite community in various ways. As for context, rural Mennonites with little education and similar occupations (farming) moved to the city to become urban, highly educated people with diverse jobs. The sectarian, non-conformist stance became more denominational and cooperative. Consciousness regarding local affairs was broadened and even globalized, primarily through the enlargement of overseas mission works and international relief and aid activities by Church-related organizations. The theological distinction between the ‘two kingdoms’ became ambiguous, and political involvement shifted from reactive to proactive (Driedger and Kraybill, 1994). Gayle Gerber Koontz, a Mennonite theologian and ethicist, argues that the greatest shift in Mennonite peace theology took place during the 1960s and 1970s. Not only did the social status of Mennonites change, but the outside society in general drastically changed, including ‘the emergence of revolutionary movements worldwide, liberation theology in Latin America, the civil rights movement, protest against the war in Vietnam and the second wave of feminism in the United States’ (Koontz, 2007, p. 4). These events helped to clarify the issue of justice and how to respond from a Mennonite pacifist viewpoint. They also helped to expand the Mennonite understanding of peace from a narrow and often personal response to war (more specifically, to military conscription), to a broad and collective response to injustice (political oppression, poverty, racism, and sexism). John Howard Yoder is noted for making major developments in Mennonite theology in the 20th century as exemplified in his masterwork, The Politics of Jesus ([1972] 1994). Through a serious exegesis of the Bible,
Christian pacifism after 9/11
101
especially of the Gospel of Luke and portions of Paul’s Letter to the Romans, he re-examined the life and ministry of Jesus as an engagement of socio-political issues. By arguing that being Christian is a political standpoint, Yoder challenged the traditional view of non-resistance, which saw the gospel of Jesus as apolitical in nature. Rather, he ‘described a Jesus who modeled active nonviolent engagement with political power’ and ‘called for economic justice and gender relations characterized by respect for the other—both of which address some of the root causes of ongoing violence’ (Koontz, 2007, p. 5). At the same time, he also challenged other theological arguments, such as those of Reinhold Niebuhr, that the teachings of Jesus were politically irrelevant and thus not applicable to social ethics (Yoder [1972] 1994). These developments and challenges gradually changed the focus of Mennonite theological emphasis from the ‘two-kingdom theology’ to ‘the lordship of Christ over all powers,’ and from non-resistance to non-violent resistance (Yoder, 1964). Mennonites moved from the withdrawal stance of the 1920s to near total social and cultural participation in the 1980s (Burkholder, 1990b). The change in theological understanding also affected the practice of Mennonites as a peace church. In addition to relatively traditional works of mission and relief service, they embarked upon the new field of peacemaking, namely conflict resolution and non-violent intervention (Reimer, 2003). In regards to conflict resolution and mediation, the Mennonite Conciliation Service (MCS) was formed in 1979 as a network of mediation and conflict resolution practitioners from across North America. It was ‘the only religiously based conflict resolution organization at that time’ (Sampson and Lederach, 2000, p. 34) and primarily focused on training individuals, providing resources, and mediating personal and group-level conflicts inside and outside of Christian congregations. From the activities of MCS, the establishment of Mennonite-related institutions in this field occurred. Among these are the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center in Lombard, Illinois, educational programs at Eastern Mennonite University, Fresno Pacific University and other universities and colleges, and the Peace and Justice Network of Mennonite Church USA. Some of the programs have been globalized, such as those that send mediators abroad for conciliation, consultation, and training, and the educational programs available for foreign students to study conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Currently, the Mennonite Conciliation Service has been reorganized as the Office on Peacebuilding of the Mennonite Central Committee, United States, and has integrated with the Office on Crime and Justice, which was involved in the Victim Offender Reconciliation Program (VORP) with an emphasis on the concept of restorative justice.
102
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
As for non-violent intervention in conflicted areas, the establishment and development of CPT must be reaffirmed. Ronald J. Sider, an Anabaptismminded theologian, initiated the concept of civil intervention by Christians committed to non-violence and peacemaking. In 1984, at the General Assembly of Mennonite World Conference in Strasbourg, France, he challenged the global community of Mennonite-related Christians by contrasting soldiers and pacifists: Those who have believed in peace through the sword have not hesitated to die. Proudly, courageously, they give their lives.. . . For their loved ones, for justice, and for peace, they have laid down their lives by the millions. Why do we pacifists think that our way—Jesus’ way—to peace will be less costly?. . . In previous centuries, we died for our convictions. But today we have grown soft and comfortable. Unless comfortable . . . Mennonites . . . are prepared to risk injury and death in nonviolent opposition to the injustice . . . we dare never whisper another word about pacifism to our sisters and brothers. . . Making peace is as costly as waging war. Unless we are prepared to pay the cost of peacemaking, we have no right to claim the label or preach the message. (Sider, 1984, pp. 7–8)
The audience profoundly affirmed Sider’s plea for a so-called peace revival. After the conference, the denominational executives from North America gathered to discuss the implementation possibilities, and CPT was later founded in 1988. Despite the relatively short term of its existence, CPT has been increasingly recognized and invited to various areas of lethal violence, including Haiti, Bosnia, Chiapas (Mexico), and Gaza. It is currently working in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq, Kenora, Canada, the Arizona/Mexico border, the Magdalena Medio region of Colombia, and the Hebron District of the West Bank. CPT has extended its governing body to include the Historic Peace Churches and included organizations of other denominations such as the Baptist Peace Fellowship and the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship as sponsors. There are 36 full-time Christian Peacemaker Corps members and 152 Reserve Corps members from the ecumenical Christian community. According to Koontz, the 1980s saw a divergence of themes that addressed many aspects of justice, peace, and response to violence. Among them were the development of biblical studies of peace by Millard Lind, Waldemar Janzen, and Willard M. Swartley, the approaches to peace from the views of historical and systematic theology by C. Norman Kraus, Alan Kreider, and Thomas N. Finger, and feminist approaches by Ruth Krall, Lydia Harder, and Mary Schertz. Interest in conflict studies and civilian non-violent intervention, as mentioned above, were also in line with these diversifying streams. Another stream also emerged that was closely related to these: involvement with public policy issues. Challenges to their peace
Christian pacifism after 9/11
103
position had a great impact on Mennonites in the 1990s, when events such as the Persian Gulf War, the civil war in Somalia, and the genocide in Rwanda demonstrated the new realities of the post-Cold War world. It is in this context that the 9/11 attacks posed another challenge to the Mennonite peace position concerning ‘the relationship of global economics and peace; the relationship of global power politics and peace; and Muslim–Christian relationships’ (Koontz, 2007, p. 11).
IV THE IMPACT OF 9/11 ON MENNONITE PACIFISM Based on the development of Christian peacemaking both in words and in deeds, as briefly reviewed above, I now turn to the events of 9/11 and how they affected Christian pacifists. The experience was so overwhelming that covering the whole response simply goes beyond the capacity of this chapter. Thus, this section mentions a few cooperative projects and individual works that responded to 9/11. In January 2002, meetings were held in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and Dallas, Texas. They were titled ‘We are People of God’s Peace: Gatherings to Discern a Mennonite Response to September 11 and Pax Americana,’ and were convened by the major officials of the Mennonite denominational organizations. The statement adopted at the gatherings started with a confession that the participants were ‘not actively learning Christ’s way of peace in our world,’ being ‘tempted by a comfortable gospel that allows [them] to love God without doing the hard work of making peace and seeking justice in our neighborhoods, communities, and world’ (We are People of God’s Peace, 2002, p. 2). It recognized that the life of Mennonites in the United States was based on the myth of ‘Pax Americana,’ or the recognition of the United States as the world superpower and the only protector of prosperous peace. It also confessed to their seeing ‘the post-September 11 world as a new and dangerous reality’ to be their ‘failure to perceive and share in the insecurity and danger that has been a way of life’ for many fellow human beings both inside and outside the United States (ibid.). The statement goes on to affirm the lordship of Christ over all worldly powers and systems, the legacy of the Anabaptist commitment to peacemaking, as well as the Mennonite involvement with relief service, development assistance, mutual aid, simple living, and reducing violence. It also called for specific actions of prayer, peace education, inter-religious and inter-racial dialogue, development of peace theology, public advocacy for peace and justice, responsible use of material resources, and strengthening of total allegiance to Christ the Prince of Peace (ibid.).
104
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
Another more professional response to the tragedy was the Peace Theology Research Project, initiated by the Mennonite Central Committee, a Mennonite service and relief organization based in Akron, Pennsylvania. This two-year project studied the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the use of force; the essays and findings have been collected in the book, At Peace and Unafraid (Friesen and Schlabach, 2005). It seems fair to say that, while the book has addressed a new dimension of Mennonite peace theology, this is one of the first publications on the topic and the explorations are still in the embryonic state. The discussion continues, and whether the outcome will be crystallized into a certain form of official theological affirmation is still uncertain. While these official and cooperative responses have taken place among Mennonites, there are many individuals who have articulated their convictions and analysis as well as concerns and hopes. J. Denny Weaver, a Mennonite theologian, argues that 9/11 was an unforgettable tragedy and thus we should remember it, but most critical is how we remember it. Christian pacifists oppose all violence because they oppose the presumption that a wrong can be righted by violence. Both terrorists and the US government have failed to teach each other a lesson, and the cycle of violence cannot be stopped by more powerful violence. This is the place, he argues, where Christian pacifists and peace churches have a public role to play: in opposing war and suggesting alternatives (Weaver, 2003). John D. Roth, a Mennonite historian, begins his response by reaffirming Christian faith as following Jesus in a life of discipleship, rather than ‘redefining faith as a list of doctrinal beliefs or as a private, personal relationship with God or as membership in a particular church’ (Roth, 2002, p. 10). He then moves on to specific alternatives, carefully avoiding both total involvement with political power (i.e., the so-called Constantinianism), and the entire withdrawal from the political process (i.e., apolitical quietism). He affirms honesty and compassion as ‘the heart of Christian faith’ (ibid., p. 173). Several initiatives by Christian pacifists in local communities (such as LaCasa, Bridgework Theater, and the Friends of the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail, Inc.) are featured as examples that anti-war pacifists do not claim that they are ‘doing nothing’ in response to the attacks, but that there are many things that can be done in the daily sphere to nurture peace. He also emphasizes a need for a so-called ‘double vision,’ ‘a capacity both to participate fully within the life of our communities or countries, while also recognizing that we are part of a larger global community’ of faith (ibid., p. 178). Among the diverse forms of practices are Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), which connects businesspeople with the poor around the world in partnership, CPT as already mentioned, and Seniors for Peace, a peace movement for the elderly. His suggestion of ‘selective disengagement’
Christian pacifism after 9/11
105
includes choosing not to litigate, abstaining from singing the national anthem, living in economic simplicity, and withholding war taxes. He too emphasizes the virtue of humility, ‘to embody the vulnerability of the cross in everyday human relations’ (ibid., p. 11). Thus, he argues: In the end, Christian pacifism is not an argument to be won, or a tool for reaching ideal political outcomes, or even an airtight ethical system. It is simply a commitment to follow Jesus sincerely and completely, even if that path should lead to the cross. (ibid., p. 12)
The events of 9/11 challenged not only the affirmation of the traditional pacifist stance, but also challenged Christian pacifists to reconsider their convictions concerning the use of coercive force, especially police force. Jim Wallis describes that while he has practiced civil disobedience in reaction to US foreign policy because of its double standards and propaganda, 9/11 showed him that the very security of innocent people was at stake. He admits that a certain level of use of force may be needed to find and capture the perpetrators and to stop the killing of innocent people, by referring to the cases of Bonhoeffer, Ellul, and Gandhi. And he argues that the time has come to explore a theology of international policing, or certain coercion (Wallis, 2002). It should be said that such theological explorations have begun already. A. James Reimer, a Mennonite theologian, uses the concept of the Trinity to understand non-violence and violence in a theological tradition of pacifism and to respond to the question, ‘Is force sometimes justified?’ To believe in a triune God means, he argues, ‘that God the Creator, God the Christ, and God the Spirit are three ways of understanding the one God’ (Reimer, 2004, p. 2). That is, ‘to say that God is fully revealed in Jesus of Nazareth is not to say everything there is to say about God’ (ibid.). Christians ‘are called to be nonviolent peacemakers in the world, but God in God’s essence transcends all human ethical systems’ (ibid.). While he articulates, ‘God’s wrath and judgment do not translate into a justification of our own use of violence,’ he argues that ‘while God’s essence is love, strictly speaking, God cannot be said to be a “pacifist” in any human ethical sense’ (ibid.). Reimer distinguishes the use of military force or war from national and/or international policing, the former being illegitimate and the latter being legitimate. He justifies these distinctions in terms of the different assumptions of policing vs. warring, proposing policing as an institutional mechanism for maintaining law and order in society. Arguing that there was ‘no sixteenth-century Anabaptist who denied the need for strong civic institutions . . . to punish the wicked, restrain evildoers, and protect the innocent with the use of force’ (ibid., p. 4), he concludes that force is sometimes
106
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
justified and legitimate in a ‘fallen’ world, and ‘the challenge for . . . twentyfirst century Mennonites is to retrieve some form of two-kingdom thinking but to reconfigure the relationship between the two realms’ (ibid., p. 5). He also suggests that Christians should pursue non-coercive ways of conflict resolution as a top priority, but not be tempted by ‘the illusion that all conflicts can be solved in this way’ (ibid.). The arguments of Wallis and Reimer can be seen as trials to put the pacifist feet into the shoes of another Christian understanding of war, namely, just war doctrine. This line of thought can be traced back to John Howard Yoder, who not only took his pacifist position, but also the prevailing just war position quite seriously. He seems to have discerned that in order to truly challenge the just war thinkers, he had to take their tradition even more seriously than they themselves did. Through extensive study and analysis, he challenged the credibility of just war thinking, examined the historical variations and conceptual discontinuities of just war traditions, and showed the difficulties of applying the tradition to the contemporary real world (Yoder, 1996). While Wallis and Reimer allude to using just war doctrine to challenge naive pacifists, Duane Shank follows Yoder more faithfully by applying the basic concepts of just war to the actual situation of the war in Afghanistan. Based on the examinations of the basic criteria of just war, such as just cause, legitimate authority, right intention, last resort, and proportionality, Shank concluded that ‘presumption against war was not overridden,’ that ‘other alternatives were never tried,’ and that ‘the war in Afghanistan was not just’ (Shank, 2002, pp. 6–7). Scholars and practitioners of conflict resolution have also provided many comments and analyses. For example, John Paul Lederach, a Mennonite sociologist and mediator, framed the challenge of 9/11 into three sets of paradoxical questions on justice, enemy, and change. As for justice, while we recognize the voices seeking responsibility through retribution or even retaliation, we also hear the voices raising the problem of socio-economic injustice. Concerning the enemy, on one hand, there is a tendency to make him visible, by personalizing and territorializing him. On the other hand, Terror with a capital T is mentioned as the enemy. That is, it is ‘multi-generational, a social phenomenon built over time, without territory’ in the forms of ‘culture, ideas, narrative, chosen myths, glories and traumas’ (Lederach, 2001, p. 5). Regarding change, there is the voice of isolationism, which seeks to change the outside while leaving the inside unchanged. The other voice calls for internal changes in culture, religion and perception. Lederach argues that the challenge of 9/11 is to hold these paradoxes not in ‘either/or construction of understanding,’ but in ‘a both/and frame of reference for addressing complexity’ (ibid., p. 7).
Christian pacifism after 9/11
107
In his book titled The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God (2002), Lee Griffith, a Brethren writer and activist, proclaims the significance of nonviolent alternatives to the war on terrorism by combining reflection on current events, examples from church history, and biblical exegesis. Although he had completed work on the greater part of the book before 9/11, he added a postscript with particular reference to the event. He challenges a typical 9/11 cliché: that everything has changed since September 11. He argues that nothing has changed in terms of the victims (they were mainly innocent), the dualistic assumption of good and evil (an oft-claimed Manichean dichotomy), the United States joining the spiral of violence (as in Vietnam), how terror was sown and reaped (as the United States supported ‘the freedom fighters’ who eventually became a ‘threat’), how societal security and freedom were put aside for the sake of national security (as with the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II), and how the terrorist acts were interpreted as a manifestation of God’s terror (apocalypticism from Thomas Muntzer to Aum Shinrikyo). Nothing has changed, he argues, especially from the viewpoint of God, since the murder of Abel by Cain in the Book of Genesis. Griffith sees the real change in the fact that God spared Cain, the murderer of innocent Abel. God spared Cain nonetheless ‘with a mark of protection and a place of refuge’ (Griffith, 2002, p. 277). And Griffith sees in it ‘the only surprise’ and ‘the only hope’ (ibid.). The incidents and aftermath of 9/11 challenged Mennonite pacifism to reconsider its convictions comprehensively. Duane K. Friesen points out that since 9/11, Christians in the United States have been put in an ambiguous state in terms of their Christian and American identities (Friesen, 2002). Some of them undoubtedly identify themselves as both, regarding that being Christian automatically equates to being (good) Americans. Others feel uneasiness or even strong contradiction between the two identities. The sense of crisis regarding identity seems, unavoidably, to call for serious reconsideration about the relations between Christian faith and the surrounding culture in terms of a believer’s identity. Reconsideration of faith–culture relations necessitates reaffirming two different pacifist attitudes, that is, non-resistance and non-violence. While the overall shift from non-resistance to non-violence seems irreversible as has been argued earlier in this chapter, the claim of non-violence as a Christian imperative must confront the so-called ‘myth of redemptive violence,’ a cultural preoccupation that violence works to save higher values such as liberty, justice, order, and human dignity (Wink, 1992). Again, this leads to a need for more careful and thoughtful exploration concerning the use of force and consideration of whether forceful coercion is always
108
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
violent, whether the use of force for warring and policing can be distinguished, and also whether and how non-violent Christians can and should conform to the use of police force both domestically and internationally.
V
CONCLUSION
What can we say about Christian pacifism from a Mennonite perspective? As for Mennonites, a general tendency of its pacifist position can be described, in the words of Driedger and Kraybill (1994, p. 263), ‘a shift from passivity to activism, from isolation to engagement’. The word of nonresistance has mostly been replaced by the word of non-violence, and Mennonites have accumulated the wisdom of service and witness to the world. But we cannot see the movement following a linear path of evolutionary progress. Rather, there has been a dialectical tension between quietist withdrawal from the world as opposed to the church, and activist engagement with the world on which the lordship of Christ prevails. At least, the incidents of 9/11 seem to have triggered the resurgence of twokingdom theology, while there are many voices that reaffirm the activist position. Going back to the beginning of this chapter, we may be able to see the Christian Peacemaker Teams as a form of possible integration between withdrawal and engagement. On the one hand, it is an obvious activist expression of Christian pacifism. The teams intervene, without armament, into the areas of lethal violence. They do so to reduce violence, symbolize an international presence, and witness what is happening there. On the other hand, CPT retains pious and quietist elements in its ministry. Starting with their training, team members learn not only skills for non-violent direct action, but also spiritual disciplines such as worship, prayer, and journaling. They call their work ‘the ministry of presence,’ emphasizing how they are, rather than what they do and how it is done. They try to be faithful to rather than effective in, their activity. Most of all, they are willing to take risks, not because non-violence is the safest way, but because non-violence is the will of God. The death of Tom Fox added another story of martyrdom, which has repeatedly been encouraged in the Anabaptist/Mennonite tradition as a way to embrace nonresistance in the face of persecution. There is no doubt that his life and death are incarnations of Christian discipleship, in which non-resistance and non-violence are inseparably intertwined.
Christian pacifism after 9/11
109
REFERENCES Burkholder, John R. (1990a), ‘Nonresistance,’ Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 5, pp. 637–8. Burkholder, John R. (1990b), ‘Peace,’ Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 5, pp. 681–5. Driedger, Leo and Donald B. Kraybill (1994), Mennonite Peacemaking: From Quietism to Activism, Scottdale, PA and Waterloo, ON: Herald Press. Fox, Tom (2005), ‘Why Are We Here?’ Electronic Iraq, December 3, retrieved January 27, 2008, from http://electroniciraq.net/iraqdialies/why_are_we_here_ 2212-2212-shtml. Friesen, Duane K. (2002), ‘Christian pacifism and September 11,’ Mennonite Life, 57(3). Friesen, Duane K. and Gerald W. Schlabach (eds) (2005), At Peace and Unafraid: Public Order, Security, and the Wisdom of the Cross, Scottdale, PA: Herald Press. Griffith, Lee (2002), The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Hershberger, Guy F. (1959), ‘Pacifism,’ Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, pp. 104–5. Huebner, Harry (2006), ‘Different world views behind criticism of CPT in Canadian media,’ Mennonite Weekly Review, April 10, retrieved May 26, 2006, http://www.mennoweekly.org/APRIL/04-10-06/CPT-MEDIA04-10.html. Koontz, Gayle Gerber (2007), ‘Peace theology in transition: North American Mennonite peace studies and theology, 1906–2006,’ The Mennonite Quarterly Review, 81(1), retrieved July 4, 2007, from http//www.goshen.edu/mqr/pastissues/jan07Gerberkoontz.html. Lederach, John Paul (2001), ‘Quo Vadis?: Reframing Terror from the Perspective of Conflict Resolution,’ lecture presented at the University of California, Irvine, Townhall Meeting, October 24, retrieved May 29, 2006, from http://www.emu. edu/cjp/bse/bse-reframing.html. Reimer, A. James (2004), ‘Is force sometimes justified?’ Project Ploughshares website, retrieved May 18, 2006, from http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/ Reduce/ InterventionPaperReimer.htm. Reimer, Dalton (2003), ‘Toward a holistic understanding of peace: the twentiethcentury journey,’ Direction, 32(1): 3–9. Roth, John D. (2002), Choosing Against War: A Christian View, Intercourse, PA: Good Books. Sampson, Cynthia and John Paul Lederach (eds) (2000), From the Ground Up: Mennonite Contributions to International Peacebuilding, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sider, Ronald J. (1984), ‘Jesus’ call to be peacemakers,’ in God’s People Reconciling, retrieved January 27, 2008, from http://www.cpt.org/resources/sider. Shank, Duane (2002), ‘War in Afghanistan: was it just?,’ Mennonite Life, 57(1). The Schleitheim Text (Brotherly Union of a number of children of God concerning Seven Articles) (1973), translated and edited by J.H. Yoder, Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, retrieved May 25, 2006, from http://members.iquest.net/~jswartz/schleitheim/index.html. Wallis, Jim (2002), ‘Hard questions for peacemakers,’ SojoNet, January–February, retrieved October 7, 2004, from www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine article&issue=soj0201&article=020112.
110
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
‘We are People of God’s Peace: Gatherings to Discern a Mennonite Response to September 11 and Pax Americana’ (2002), retrieved August 29, 2006, from http://peace.mennolink.org/articles/sept11_statement.html. Weaver, J. Denny (2003), ‘Remembering the future: September 11 and war with Iraq,’ DreamSeeker Magazine, 3(1). Wink, Walter (1992), Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press. Yoder, John Howard (1964), The Christian Witness to the State, Newton KS: Faith and Life Press. Yoder, John Howard [1972] (1994), The Politics of Jesus, 2nd edition, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Yoder, John Howard (1996), When War is Unjust: Being Honest in Just-War Thinking, 2nd edition, Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers.
7. The problem of peace and world order in an Islamic context: the case of modern Japan Norio Suzuki We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person—unless it be for murder or for spreading corruption throughout the land—it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. (Qur’an, 5:32)
In the late 20th century, Kishore Mahbubani, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore, asked ‘Can Asians think?’ and his answer was that they could, provided they did so (Mahbubani 1998, p. 33). To construct a grand theory of peace research, we should ask ourselves, how can we ‘think’ by placing ourselves and our minds within an Islamic context? The answer provided by this chapter is very simple. That is, yes, we can think within an Islamic context, and if we do so, we can obtain an alternative image of a world order. But can we really ‘think’ about world peace using an Islamic context? That is the question.
I ‘GOOD MUSLIMS’ AND ‘BAD MUSLIMS’ IN THE UNITED STATES ‘Good Muslims’ Dr. Fouad Ajami is the Majid Khadduri1 Professor and Director of the Middle East Studies Program in the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC. He has also been an advisor to United States, Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and is a friend and former colleague of former Deputy Secretary for Defense Paul Wolfowitz. One could say his life is a classic American success story. Ajami was born in 1945 in the southern Lebanese Shiite village of Arnoun, which is also home to the ruin of a Crusader’s citadel. Now a naturalized US citizen, Dr. Ajami has become the most politically influential 111
112
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
Arab intellectual of his generation in the United States. In 2003, Ajami was an outspoken supporter of the Iraq War and his support drew criticism from academics who labeled him as a convert to Nazism, and so on. When one thinks about what Islam can contribute to the construction of a grand theory of peace research, we must give careful consideration to Dr. Ajami’s brilliant but nihilistic attitude toward Islam. Because of his support for the war, Ajami is considered ‘a good Arab Muslim’ in American political society. This implies, however, that there are ‘bad Arab Muslims,’ and that the discourses of bad Arab Muslims—that the war is bad and American and coalition troops should withdraw—are not as readily accepted in American political society. As Mahmood Mamdani, Director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University, wrote, ‘all Muslims were now under obligation to prove their credentials by joining in a war against “bad Muslims”,’ and ‘judgments of “good” and “bad” refer to Muslim political identities, not to cultural or religious ones.’ He continues: Culture Talk assumes that every culture has a tangible essence that defines it, and it then explains politics as a consequence of that essence. Culture Talk after 9/11, for example, qualified and explained the practice of ‘terrorism’ as ‘Islamic.’ ‘Islamic terrorism’ is thus offered as both description and explanation of the events of 9/11. It is no longer the market (capitalism), nor the state (democracy), but culture (modernity) that is said to be the dividing line between those in favor of peaceful, civic existence and those inclined to terror. (Mamdani, 2004, pp. 15–18)
Adam Shatz (2003) describes Ajami’s unique role in American political life as follows: Ajami’s unique role in American political life has been to unpack the unfathomable mysteries of the Arab and Muslim world and to help sell America’s wars in the region. A diminutive, balding man with a dramatic beard, stylish clothes and a charming, almost flirtatious manner, he has played his part brilliantly. On television, he radiates above-the-frayness, speaking with the wry, jaded authority that men in power admire, especially in men who have risen from humble roots. Unlike the other Arabs, he appears to have no ax to grind. He is one of us; he is the good Arab.
What made Ajami ‘the good Arab’ and why? Shatz continued: An anatomy of the intellectual and political crisis that swept the Arab world following its defeat by Israel in the 1967 war, it [Ajami, 1992] is one of the most probing and subtle books ever written in English on the region. Ranging gracefully across political theory, literature and poetry, Ajami draws an elegant, often moving portrait of Arab intellectuals in their anguished efforts to put together
Peace and world order in an Islamic context
113
a world that had come apart at the seams.. . . It was the book of a man who had grown disillusioned with Nasser, whose millenarian dream of restoring the ‘Arab nation’ had run up against the hard fact that the ‘divisions of the Arab world were real, not contrived points on a map or a colonial trick.’ But pan-Arabism was not the only temptation to which the intellectuals had succumbed. There was radical socialism, and the Guevarist fantasies of the Palestinian revolution. There was Islamic fundamentalism, with its romance of authenticity and its embittered rejection of the West.. . . On the recommendation of Bernard Lewis, the distinguished British Orientalist at Princeton and a strong supporter of Israel, Ajami became the first Arab to win the MacArthur genius prize in 1982, and in 1983 he became a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. The New Republic began to publish lengthy essays by Ajami, models of the form that offer a tantalizing glimpse of the career he might have had in a less polarized intellectual climate. Pro-Israel intellectual circles groomed him as a rival to Edward Said, holding up his book as a corrective to Orientalism, Said’s classic study of how the West imagined the East in the age of empire. (Ibid.)
Understanding the meaning of the 1967 war is very important when reconsidering Islam in a contemporary world. Ajami’s The Arab Predicament is a brilliant book on this subject. Edward Said’s Orientalism is also one of the epitaphs for the death of Arab nationalism brought about by the 1967 war. It can be said that June 1967 is an important turning point in the post-nationalism era that now recognizes Islam as an alternative to Arab nationalism for having a solution to the ‘Arab Predicament.’ Ajami’s position is very clear with regard to Islamic movements and thought today. Ajami’s behavior itself is evidence that all is over with Islamic discourses in the US. ‘Islamic discourses’ means nothing politically for a ‘good Muslim’ in the US like Ajami. So, when we would like to reconstruct and have a persuasive theory of peace using Islamic discourses in the West, we should first analyze what to make of Ajami. Some of the so-called ‘bad Muslims’ in the US make the claim to the American public that ‘Islam is a religion of peace.’ ‘Islamic discourses’ in the US turn the concept of peace upside down. ‘Bad Muslims’/‘Islam is a Religion of Peace’ ‘Islam is a religion of peace,’ Sherman Jackson, co-founder of the American Learning Institute for Muslims (ALIM), writes. ‘This is certainly the mantra that has inundated us from almost every quarter since the horrifying events of September 11, 2001’ (Jackson, 2007, p. 394). He continues: From President George W. Bush to local, national and even international Muslim spokespersons, the peaceful nature of Islam has been reiterated time and again. Of course, this has not gone unchallenged. Skeptics, polemicists, even
114
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
opportunists of various stripes, have repeatedly warned against accepting too uncritically what they hint at being a ‘new found, politically correct’ depiction of religion that includes, inter alia, a scripturally mandated institution of armed violence and a holy book that exhorts its adherents, at least on the face of it, to ‘slay “them” wherever you find them.’ Today, years after the tragedy, emotions and rhetoric on both sides have subsided a bit. But there is still a perduring suspicion among many Americans—including many Muslim Americans—when it comes to the question of Islam, violence and relationship between Muslims and nonMuslims. (Ibid.)
In general, there are three dimensions of the explanation that ‘Islam is a religion of peace.’ These dimensions are very common, easily understood ways of understanding this belief for ordinary Muslims who are familiar with Islamic history. First, the typical explanation of Islam as ‘a religion of peace’ comes from the meaning of Islam itself. The word Islam is derived from the same Arabic root words as peace (silm, salm, salam). It is certainly possible to derive additional meanings from these root words, and this has been done intentionally. For example, the words can imply ‘surrender to God’s will,’ with the consequent connotation of serenity, contentment, and peace of mind. However, this should not be considered the equivalent of a situation of no war on earth. In Qur’anic verse, Islamic guidance is depicted as the light that leads from darkness to the paths of peace (subul as-salam) and safety. Peace is also one of the Holy Attributes and one of the ‘Best Names of God’ is ‘Peace’ (salam). The ‘Best Names of God’ are mentioned in the Qur’an and persist in many Traditions (Sunnah) and are recited several times a day during Muslim prayer. A well-known Islamic invocation addresses God by the words, ‘O God, Thou art peace, and from Thee comes Peace. Be Blessed and High Exalted, O! August and Glorious.’ ‘Peace be upon you’ (Assalam Alaikum) is the usual salutation used daily among Muslims and Arabs up to the present time. Thus, Islam infuses Muslims’ daily life with messages of peace. Further, whenever the Prophet Muhammad, Jesus, or any other prophet is mentioned, his name is immediately followed by the phrase: ‘Peace be upon him’ (Alaihis-salam). Paradise is designated as the ‘Abode of Peace’ (dar-es-salam) in many Qur’anic verses. The word ‘peace’ and its derivatives are cited in more than 100 verses of the Qur’an, while the word ‘war’ and its derivative verb are mentioned in only six verses. Of course, there are many questions about the concepts of ‘peace’ and ‘war’ themselves; however, we can still recognize why Islam is called a religion of peace. The essential meaning of the second dimension of Islam is to submit and surrender one’s will to a higher truth and a transcendental law. By doing
Peace and world order in an Islamic context
115
this, one can lead a meaningful life informed by the divine purpose of creation, and the dignity and freedom of all human beings is equally protected. Islamic teachings assert the basic freedom and equality of all peoples because all people are equal as creatures of God, and the differences in the forms of existence are characteristic of the ‘creature’ itself. Islam stresses the importance of mutual help and respect and directs Muslims to extend friendship and goodwill to all, regardless of their religious, ethnic, gender, cultural, linguistic, or racial background. One could say that the Prophet Muhammad was the peacemaker of his time; he endured torture, hunger, and the killing of his loved ones at the hands of his enemies, but he remained a merciful person. For example, after the bloodless conquest of Makkah, he forgave his enemies. During his 23 years of struggle for Islam and the resultant wars, the total number of people who lost their lives from all sides was fewer than 700. These facts also illustrate the view that ‘Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance.’ There is also an abundance of Qur’anic and historical evidence to show that Islam does not approve of coercion. For example, throughout the 13 years of his mission in Makkah, the Prophet disallowed the use of force by his followers even though non-believers persecuted them. In its third and final dimension, peace in Islamic thought does not mean the absence of war, but rather the absence of oppression, corruption, injustice, and tyranny. Islam considers that real peace can only be attained when justice prevails. Islam therefore justifies war against regimes that prevent people from choosing their ideals and practicing their beliefs. So you may say Islam propounds a just war theory; however, it does not justify war against non-Muslim peoples simply because they are not believers. An Islamic society should thus maintain peace with those who show goodwill toward Muslims. In international law, there is a set of well-established rules concerning the obligations of nations toward each other in times of war and peace. The first of these is that a country should base its relations with other countries on terms of peace so that it may exchange ideas and goods, and benefit and cooperate with each other in order to promote humanity to utmost perfection. Peaceful ties like these should not be broken except in extreme situations that necessitate war, provided that all peaceful steps have failed to terminate the cause of the dispute. This ideal is what Islam has been working toward, and the relationships of Muslims with others are primarily based on peace, and there are many instances of this. For example, the first Ummah Islamiya, or Islamic Community, on earth was co-founded with Jews in Medina. Muslims often refuse to fight merely because others do not embrace the Islamic faith, and Islam does not allow Muslims to fight against those who disagree with them regardless of belief system. Islam
116
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
urges its followers to treat such people kindly: ‘God does not enjoin you from befriending those who do not fight you because of religion, and do not evict you from your homes. You may befriend them and be equitable towards them. God loves those who are just and equitable’ (Qur’an, 60:8). In another verse God says, ‘Therefore, if they leave you alone, refrain from fighting you, and offer you peace, then God gives you no excuse in fighting them’ (Qur’an, 4:90). Muslims are told, ‘If they resort to peace, so shall you, and put your trust in God’ (Qur’an, 8:61). There are many other examples regarding conflict with non-believers. Those three dimensions or patterns are very common points of discussion when talking about Islam as a religion of peace. There are also many other Islamic jurisprudential and intellectual approaches on this matter; however, there are also many attacks against the religion of peace. There are several patterns to the attacks made on Islam; these patterns purport to demonstrate that Islam is not a peaceful religion. For example, attackers point out that the Prophet Muhammad sent letters to the kings and leaders of the surrounding countries and tribes inviting them to surrender to his authority and to believe in him as the messenger of Allah. He always ended his letters with the following two words: ‘Aslem, Taslam!’ Although these two words are derived from the same infinitive, salama, which is the root of salam (i.e., peace), neither word implies the true or most common meaning of ‘peace.’ ‘Aslem, Taslam!’ means ‘Surrender and you will be safe,’ or alternatively, ‘Surrender or face death.’ So where, attackers ask, is the meaning of ‘peace’ in such a religion that threatens to kill others if they don’t submit to it? Another pattern of attack on the ‘religion of peace’ is as follows: the Qur’an and other Islamic books are full of examples that demonstrate that had it not been for violence, Islam would not have survived its birth or even lasted and thrived until today. A good example of this is the Wars of AlRiddah, that is, the ‘Wars against the Apostates’ that began immediately after the death of Muhammad. Feeling relieved after the disappearance of the strong and fearless leader, Muhammad, the tribes that were forced to embrace Islam revolted. One after another, they became renegades and refused to pay the taxes imposed on them by the Prophet’s government. In response to the revolution, the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, ordered his army to fight the apostates. It took close to two years of fighting before the tribes were forced back into the fold of Islam. According to Traditions, these wars were not ordered only by the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, but they were also dictated by Allah and his messenger Muhammad. Further, those who attack Islam also say that the Qur’an states clearly that those who turn away from Islam are to be punished by death: ‘But if they turn renegades seize them and slay them wherever ye find them and
Peace and world order in an Islamic context
117
(in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks’ (Qur’an, 4:89). Muhammad also said (as narrated by Muslim scholar, Al-Bukhari), ‘If somebody—a Muslim—discards his religion, kill him.’ In addition, assailers of Islam note that the Qur’an not only ordered the killing of those who embraced Islam and afterwards decided to rebel, but also commanded the followers of Islam to fight all the nations until they became believers, and paid the Jizya (per capita tax) or these nations should be put to death: ‘Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the last day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and his apostle nor acknowledge the religion of truth of the people of the Book [the Jews and the Christians] until they pay the Jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued’ (Qur’an, 9:29). And in the same Sura (chapter), verse 5, the Qur’an also states: ‘Fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem.’ Those using these types of attacks against the claim that Islam is ‘a religion of peace’ distort the story to their own advantage by neglecting the original meaning and context of the Qur’anic texts, but for those who want to have a political, ideological, and religious mud-slinging contest, attackers should be familiar with the term ‘a religion of peace.’ As Bobby S. Sayyid wrote in his book, Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism (2003, p. 160), ‘Islam is the thinnest of phrases in Muslims’ final vocabulary. It is this thinness which makes it difficult to contest. Ultimately, for Muslims, Islam is another word for “Goodness incarnate,” ’ and ‘Islam is another name for the hope of something better.’ In this context, we will see that the term ‘bad Muslims’ is a contradiction in terms, as would be the term ‘virtuous tyrant.’
II
‘CAN MUSLIMS THINK?’
‘The Global Public Sphere’ of Muslim Intellectuals Again, in constructing a grand theory of peace research, what can we ‘think’ in an Islamic context? An approach to Islamism now being used by Susan Buck-Morss, political philosopher at Cornell University, is acquiring a new significance: By attempting to silence Islam as a political discourse, and by reducing it to a religious practice, President George W. Bush is in effect closing off public discussion of how the many branches of Islamism are challenging and extending the discursive field of political resistance. Such a discussion, however, needs to be engaged within the global public sphere, as opposed to our own provincial one, and there is an urgent need to do so. However, this urgent task requires,
118
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
paradoxically, time—time to read not only news reports and journalistic comments that record and react to the kaleidoscope of daily events, but also scholarly articles and books, such as those written by the critical theorists Akbar Ahmed, Leila Ahmad, Mohammed Arkoun, Talal Asad, Ahmet Davutoglu, Saba Mahmood, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Abdelwahab El-Messiri, Ali Mirsepassi, Ali Moussalli, Bobby Sayyid, Hisham Sharabi, Azzam Tamimi, Bassam Tibi. These Islamic scholars and political theorists (who in no way speak with one voice) have been trained in the West; most now live and teach there and have become citizens of their adopted countries. They are fluent in the traditions of Husserl’s and Heidegger’s phenomenology, Foucault’s analyses of power and truth, Gramsci’s work on organic intellectuals, Derrida on deconstruction, the radical democracy of Laclau and Mouffe, the cultural studies of the Birmingham school, the postcolonialism of Spivak and Bhabha, and the critical theories of Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin, and Habermas. They have been writing for Western audiences for the past decade, and are engaged in the crucial task of making clear how Western phenomena such as secularization, modernization and nationalism change not only their conceptual meaning as they move from Western to non-Western cultures, but also their material referents, and with them, their political values. (Buck-Morss, 2003, pp. 42–43).2
There now exist global Muslim intellectual networks composed of this new generation of scholars and others within the global public sphere; however, the audiences are very limited. Buck-Morss continues on the innovative political use of Islamic discourses: ‘Paradoxically (dialectically?), once Islam was free from traditional institutional arrangements, emptied of any political use yet still widely dispersed within cultural life, it became available for articulations of political resistance to the postcolonial order’ (ibid., p. 45). She also insists that ‘We, as critical theorists, need to make Western audiences aware that Islamism as a political discourse embraces far more than the dogmatic fundamentalism and terrorist violence that dominate in the Western press’ (ibid., p. 49). In spite of her claim, Islamic discourses are still classified into a special field by ‘Culture Talk’: that of Orientalism: Islamic discourses are also a powerful source of critical debate in the struggle against the undemocratic imposition of the so-called new world order by the United States and against the economic and ecological violence of neo-liberalism, the fundamentalist orthodoxies of which fuel the growing divide between rich and poor. Secularization, however, is no guarantee against dogmatic beliefs, and even foundational religious texts are open to multiple interpretations. Islamism has become a site within a civil society of social movements that struggle in the most diverse ways to come to grips with the inequities of modern life, and that have developed within the period of dominance by the West. This is a West that for Islamists included the atheistic, materialistic Soviet Union that so faithfully mimicked the model of Western modernization, along with the Western-Orientalist judgment of Islam as an irredeemable obstruction to historical progress. (Ibid., pp. 49–50)
Peace and world order in an Islamic context
119
Discussion of Secularism Talal Asad, one of the critical theorists Buck-Morss mentioned above, has posed some interesting questions in his discussion of secularism: I do not deny that religion, in the vernacular sense of that word, is and historically has been important for national politics in Euro-America as well as in the rest of the world. Recognition of this fact will no doubt continue to prompt useful work. But there are questions that need to be systematically addressed beyond this obvious fact. How, when, and by whom are the categories of religion and the secular defined? What assumptions are presupposed in the acts that define them? Does the shift from religious political order to one that is governed by a secular state simply involve the setting aside of divine authority in favor of human law? (Asad, 2003, p. 201)
Asad addressed the latter question in relation to a particular place and a particular time, that is, Colonial Egypt. Asad writes that a secular state ‘is not one characterized by religious indifference, or rational ethics—or political toleration’ (ibid., p. 255). Then he looked at aspects of Shari’a reform in Colonial Egypt as both the precondition and the consequence of secular processes of power. Global-wide problematiques of secularism have many counterforces, including Christianity, Islamism, and Shintoism. These religious counterforces and secularism are not equal, however; they depend on historical and situational conditions. When considering the discussion of secularism in Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion (2006), the opposite sides are not only churches or Christian power but also Islamism. So, how should we focus on the ongoing conflict between Islamism and secularism in the contemporary Muslim world? In general, we could use the term ‘Islamism’ to mean the political activism based on the belief that all human life must be guided by Islamic principles, and use ‘secularism’ as a sociological trend that seeks to separate political and civil affairs from religion. But is it true that such a conflict exists? Are Islamist and Islamism the counter-concepts against secularism? What is the difference between the United States being seen by its citizens as blessed by God and Iran as guided by modern interpretations of the doctrines of Islam? Since the 1980s and up until now, Islamism occupied a central position in both political discourse in Muslim countries and scholarly discussion among Islamic studies scholars. However, there are still doubts about establishing the framework for such discussions as ‘Islamist political challenges work against secular national governments.’ Of course, we can continue to discuss the current situation and dynamism of Islamist movements in Indonesia, Turkey, Central Asia (post-Soviet Union) and
120
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
other so-called Muslim countries, with special reference to the different intellectual, sociological, economic, and political backgrounds, and the philosophical and political struggles over Islamic law in contemporary nation-states with a Muslim majority. But it is doubtful that the central issue is the conflict between ‘Islamists’ and ‘secularists.’ Because ‘secularists’ in those nation-states are not secular at all in the sense used by Dawkins (2006, p. 68). As is well-known, from the early 19th century, most of the Muslim countries adopted the Western civil code as their model and their rulers replaced most of the traditional laws with those of Western origin. But the situation of having a civil code without ‘civism’ and laws of Western origin without Western-style jurisprudential resources in these Muslim societies has not functioned well. This may be a factor to consider when looking at the dramatic growth of Islamism during the 1980s and 2000s and the demands by Islamists that Islamic law and its codification, especially family law, regain some of its influence in most Muslim nation-states. In brief, transplanted Western laws and judicial systems are necrotizing at present, but that is not the problem of the conflict between Islamists and secularists at all. Islam as an alternative is one of the options. Peter Onuf, a professor of history at the University of Virginia, discussed America’s historical experience with secularism in order to illuminate the situation in the Middle East. He said that the assumption that the American model of democracy and rule of law can be reduced to exportable, universal principles is based on a misunderstanding of American history itself. According to Onuf, the notion that Americans have unique access to enlightened values is a providential conception of American history that is deeply rooted in Christianity, and the argument that we often hear now from many Christians, that the United States is a Christian nation, is not as crazy as we are wont to believe. He also said that Thomas Jefferson thought that if a particular religion did not have the patronage and power of the state behind it, then there would be a John Stuart Mill type of free competition in the marketplace of ideas and that good ideas and good faiths would drive out bad ideas and bad faiths. Onuf added that Jefferson’s belief was that in the fullness of time, all forms of mystical, mystified Christianity would give way to a republicanized and enlightened community of faith among Americans (cf. Onuf, 2006). This leads to the question of why no one has tried to verify Islamist discourses with Jefferson’s idea before jumping to the conclusion that there is a conflict between Islamists and secularists. According to Islamic teachings, Jesus is not God, and there is an absolute discontinuity between God and humankind. It is very clear to Muslims that Jesus was a noble human prophet like Muhammad. Thus, the meaning of ‘secularism’ in an Islamic
Peace and world order in an Islamic context
121
context must be quite different from the Euro-American one. We should not think of ‘the secular’ as the space in which everyday human life gradually emancipates itself from the controlling power of ‘religion,’ namely Christianity, and thus displaces religion. In modern European thought, it is this assumption that allows us to think of religion as ‘infecting’ the secular domain or as replicating within it the structure of theological concepts: ‘The concept of “the secular” today is part of a doctrine called secularism’ (Asad, 2003, p. 191). In other words, the concept of ‘secular’ may have no meaning in this world for Muslims, who believe that God is the absolute Other. To further examine this question hermeneutically, it is helpful to view Islamic discourses from a different perspective—that of Japan.
III
THE CASE OF MODERN JAPAN
‘Mikado Could Convert to Islam in Secular Modern Japan’ How about the case of secular, modern Japan? Are there any links between Islamic discourses and modern Japan? In constructing a grand theory of peace research, it is necessary to look at such a perspective. This is because when non-Westerners ‘think’ about an alternative world order, they are not necessarily thinking of a modern Western Christian world. Instead, Islamic discourses influence their thinking by providing guidance about what this alternative could be, such as ‘Islam is the solution,’ a typical slogan used by Islamists all over the world against Westernization. A World War II report by the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) entitled ‘Japanese Infiltration Among the Muslims Throughout the World (OSS, 1943) documented US concern over Japanese policy toward Muslim majority regions. During World War II, US intelligence officials were very concerned about Japanese infiltration of Muslim majority regions, most of which were still dominated by the West. This report claimed that Japan had successfully implemented a policy of courting Muslim nations, starting at the turn of the century, in order to serve its own strategic ends. The OSS (predecessor of the CIA) detailed the methods Tokyo employed to befriend Muslim political groups—even as far as spreading word to Muslim nations that the Mikado, Emperor Hirohito might convert to Islam and that Islam could become Japan’s state religion. The report’s summary stated, ‘She [Japan] has expended on it [Muslim policy] many years of patient labor and has assigned to it some of her ablest political and military leaders. Her cunning and opportunism, her flexible approach and unscrupulous manipulation of the facts have borne fruit in many lands’ (ibid., p. iii).
122
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
The report claimed that some Japanese strategies used a combination of anti-Western and anti-communist views, together with economic power, to appeal to those living in Muslim majority regions. According to the report, Tokyo also emphasized the flexible nature of the Japanese religion, Shinto, in order to suggest that many Japanese might convert to Islam. The report stated that Japan could appeal to Muslim missionary zeal by hinting at the opportunity of large-scale conversions among the Japanese. The research and analysis branch of the OSS wrote: Instead of posing as the magnanimous protector of Islam, Japan can make a plausible showing as an eager seeker after the truth. Under these circumstances, rumors judiciously planted here and there that the Emperor might consider turning Muslim, are bound to take root and spread. Millions of sanguine believers have fallen for the promise that Islam is about to become the world’s greatest power with the Mikado as Caliph. (Ibid., p. 5)
This report also noted that Japan began befriending Muslim majority regions and countries during the 1880s. After the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), Japan courted Muslims more openly, and as early as 1906, rumors started to circulate that the Emperor was preparing to make Islam Japan’s state religion. That was true in a sense; however, the options included not only Islam but also Christianity. But such a conversion did not come about; instead, the Japanese government of the time came up with the artificial state religion of Shinto. After World War I, the OSS report said, ‘once again word spreads abroad that thousands of Japanese have gone over to Islam, that Japan as a whole is ripe for conversion, and that the Mikado himself is on the verge of embracing the vigorous faith of Muhammad’ (ibid., p. 8). The OSS speculated that Tokyo’s Muslim policy was spearheaded by members of the Black Dragon Society (Kokuryukai), a group of Japanese pan-Asianists, and that the Muslim policy was formalized with the signing of the Muslim Pact in 1900 or 1909, which stipulated that the participants were to promote faith in Islam. Signatories were said to include Uchida Ryohei, president of Kokuryukai, Toyama Mitsuru, who was the ‘inspiration behind secret societies,’ Inukai Tsuyoshi, who would later become prime minister, and pan-Islamic writer Abdurrashid Ibrahim. According to the documents, the Kokuryukai would be directing the activities of a Japanese member, named Sakuma Teijiro, who was of the same generation as Okawa Shumei, a Japanese nationalist, pan-Asian thinker and Islamic scholar, who set up a Muslim evangelical center in Shanghai in 1923 called ‘The Society of Light’ in order to promote Islam in China. The report also pointed to a number of Muslim publications, groups, and mosques that were set up in Japan around this time, and it notes that
Peace and world order in an Islamic context
123
for years Tokyo had been successful at attracting Muslim students to visit Japan for study tours. The report claimed that Japan had been conducting ‘persistent undercover activity’ in neighboring countries: ‘As a result, the Muslim territories of Russia and China have felt the impact of subversive operations enjoying the blessing of Japan’ (ibid., p. 10). The report noted that Japan was portraying its expansion into Southeast Asia as a means of liberating those countries from the ‘Anglo-American tyranny.’ ‘In short it [the Muslim policy] is backed by the most dynamic elements in Japan, on the ascendant since the turn of the century.’ The report concluded with ‘Suggested counter-activity’ (ibid., pp. 18–19). Main Theoretical Problem Solved in the 1920s Modern Japan is characterized by ‘religious’ indifference; however, state Shintoism is not the ‘religious’ problem in Japan. Shintoism is not at the heart of the problem of ‘religion and state’ in modern Japan at all, primarily because Shinto is not a ‘religion’ to the Japanese people. In Japan, ‘religion’ means Christianity and the word was adopted for diplomatic purposes in the early days of the Meiji era. Modern state Japan, in the late 19th century, imported and adopted many words and concepts such as ‘nation,’ ‘state,’ and ‘religion’ as it became Westernized. In a sense, ‘Japan’ and ‘Japanese’ were also constructed during that era. Fitting within the structure of modern state Japan, and the Mikado (the Emperor), the modern Tennoh (‘hevenly sovereign’) system for making a modern Japanese nation, was an important concept designed by the socalled Meiji Reform founder, Itoh Hirobumi and others in order to construct a coherent national state. But why did modern Japan call itself an ‘empire’? It did so in part because the Japanese concept of nation already included other ethnic groups within Japanese territory, such as the Ainu and Ryukyu people. After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 and the RussoJapanese War, it was especially important for the Mikado to be the supreme authority for the Japanese nation as well as other Asian nations. For Japanese nationalists, like Uchida Ryohei and Toyama Mitsuru, it was not difficult to think of Japanese nationalism as equivalent to pan-Asianism. As the OSS report observed, the Mikado was the supreme existence not only for the Japanese; Muslims all over Asia had a positive image of the Mikado. Japanese nationalism had created a multinational Mikado system. Otherwise, the logic of a Japanese ‘empire’ could not be sustained at all and the modern Japanese empire faced an anomalous situation. Although, in the first stage of the modernization of Japan, the modern Tennoh should make up one nation from complex pre-Japanese groups, the concept of modern Japanese gradually expanded as ‘teikoku shinmin’ (Japanese
124
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
empire subjects) including Okinawan, Korean, Chinese and so on. In addition to this problem, it was difficult to explain how the succession of the Mikado would work, because the Meiji Mikado had been invented as a modern Mikado by Meiji Reform founders after a kind of ‘coup in Court’ in the middle of the 19th century. He was not a traditional Mikado. Shinobu Origuchi published his essays ‘Daijosai no hongi’ (The real meaning of the daijosai [succession ceremony of the Mikado]), and ‘Shinto ni arawareta minzokuronri’ (The logic of Japanese nation in Shintoism) in 1928. These essays have been extraordinarily influential in Japan these days, especially with regard to the succession of the Mikado. Briefly, Origuchi’s views are as follows: sacred power comes to the Emperor through the entry into his body of the soul or mitama of the imperial house. The legitimacy of the imperial line, dating back to the descent of the divine grandchild Ninigi-no-Mikoto, depends not so much on hereditary blood succession as on the complete and correct transference of the imperial mitama from the old Emperor to his successor. This transference is accomplished by the ritual of the daijosai, which is a symbolic enactment of the implanting and gestation of the imperial soul in its new vessel. The imperial mitama, in Origuchi’s view, resembles in some degree the ancient Shinto tama, which was believed to reside in its host, imparting to him/her life and energy, but not personality. When the tama grew weaker, or left the body, the host must fall sick and eventually die. But Origuchi reminds us that the boundary between life and death was by no means clear-cut in ancient Shinto belief. Even after bodily death, the tama was still subject to recall, by special magic songs and dances, so that life might once more be infused into the dead body. To this end the body was placed in a ‘mortuary hut,’ known as mogari, where for a stated period the magic songs, dances, and ritual calls were performed, which might induce the tama to return. Only if the body failed to return to life at the end of the period was the final funeral performed. But the case of the imperial mitama, Origuchi notes, is special in that during the period of intermediary waiting, the soul must be transferred from the body of the old Emperor to that of the new. It does not, as in the case of the souls of ordinary people, simply leave the body and depart for another world. The new Emperor’s body is a tamashii no iremono (a vessel for a soul), ready to receive the soul of his predecessor. According to Origuchi’s explanation, it can be said that the Mikado succeeds to the world order, not only for the Japanese nation, but for several nations under the Japanese Empire. The point is that the Mikado is not a god. He is a kind of prophet. He is the special vessel for God’s word and that is the basis of the legitimacy of the Mikado’s powers. How could the Mikado get words and power from the Other (God)? There is a very similar
Peace and world order in an Islamic context
125
process and structure for the succession of prophets in Islam and there is also some circumstantial evidence that, as Origuchi recognized, shows similarities to some of the Islamic doctrines regarding prophecy and Tawhid, the unity of Allah; he may also have been influenced by Okawa Shumei, Japanese political theorist and writer, and Izutsu Toshihiko, an outstanding authority in the metaphysical and philosophical schools of Islamic Sufism. The important point in this argument is Origuchi’s concept of the Mikado combined with mikotomochi. Mikotomochi is literally ‘bearer of the honorable word.’ A mikotomochi was a court official dispatched to a provincial post by imperial order. The belief that the Emperor’s authority as a sovereign was vested in his being the recipient of mikoto sent from above by the Amatsukami (Kami of heaven). Kami is a God of Gods, and Amatsukami refers to Kami residing in the Plain of High Heaven (Takamanohara), who were born in Takamanohara but later descended to the land of Japan. Therefore, even the Emperor himself served as a mikotomochi—has existed since ancient times. By extension, mikotomochi refers to any person who travels on behalf of the Emperor in order to communicate the ‘honorable words’ of the Amatsukami. On the other hand, Kunitsukami, generally refers to those kami native to the land of Japan, together with the spirits and powerful families who existed in Japan. Kunitsukami are also considered equivalent to the chthonic kami called chigi.3 According to the Kojiki (or Records of Ancient Matters, the oldest surviving book in Japan), there are five types of kami that exist in the heavens: Amenominakanushi no kami, Takamimusuhi no kami, Kamimusuhi no kami, Umashiashikabihikoji no kami, and Amenotokotachi no kami. These five are called ‘separate kami of heaven’ (kotoamatsukami); however, this separation is similar to the phenomenon of having different names for God in Islam. Each kami is not a particular individual existence; it is an expression of the essence.
V
CONCLUSION
Origuchi’s ideas on the Mikado make a very good case for understanding Islamism as a political discourse. Modern Shintoism was constructed and modified under the influence of the international situation at the time, and Japanese nationalism does not have a firm basis in tradition. Most of the so-called Japanese ‘traditions,’ such as the modern Mikado system, were invented in the past, as has happened all over the world. Islamic discourses are very helpful when a non-Western ‘nation’ wishes to view an image of an
126
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
alternative world order to the modern Christian one. The concept of ‘Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere’ (an attempt to create a bloc of Asian nations, free of Western power) includes some of the Islamic discourses like pan-Islamism; however this was a double-edged sword. Although the mantra ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ is not functional enough yet for comprehending a new sense of world order, some discourses in the Islamic context are quite effective. If we ‘think’ about this point carefully, we may discover the agreeable possibility of using Islamic discourses for the development of a grand theory of peace research.
NOTES 1. Majid Khadduri died January 25, 2007 in Potomac, Maryland, at the age of 98. Dr. Khadduri founded the Graduate Middle East Studies Program of the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC. He taught for over 30 years at SAIS and built his reputation as a professor of Middle East and Islamic Studies, and he authored 35 books in English and Arabic. The titles include The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani’s Siyar (1966), Arab Contemporaries (1973), War and Peace in the Law of Islam (1977), Independent Iraq (1980), Islamic Jurisprudence (1984), and The Islamic Conception of Justice (2002). War and Peace in the Law of Islam (1977) is a well-known book popular among Japanese scholars in the field of international law and politics. Some parts of that book are translated into Japanese, maybe without his permission, because it provides a good explanation for understanding an ‘Islamic’ international law, or siyar (in Arabic), that demonstrates the concepts of dar-l-islam, dar-l-harb, dar-l-sulh and so on. Of course, there are many differences between these Islamic concepts and the concepts of ‘nation’ and ‘state’ and so on, in the modern world. 2. And we could add other names on the list, like Asghar Ali Engineer, Khalid Masud, Tariq Ramadan, Nasr Abu Zayd, Saifeddin Abdel Fatah, Farish Noor, Abdolkarin Soroush, Mahboobeh Abbasgholizadeh, Abdelmajid Charif, Khira Chibani, Nurcholish Madjid, Jalaluddin Rakhmat, and Ebrahim Moosa (cf. Roussillon, 2005). 3. In general, the meaning of the two expressions differs depending on the era and the materials in which they appear, and debate continues to revolve over attempts to achieve a comprehensive interpretation.
REFERENCES Ajami, Fouad (1992), The Arabic Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice Since 1967, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Asad, Talal (2003), Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Buck-Morss, Susan (2003), Thinking Past Terror: Islamism and Critical Theory on the Left, New York: Verso. Dawkins, Richard (2006), The God Delusion, Ireland: Bantam Books. Jackson, Sherman (2007), ‘Jihad and the Modern World’, in John J. Donohue and John Esposito (eds), Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives, 2nd edition, New York: Oxford University Press.
Peace and world order in an Islamic context
127
Mahbubani, Kishore (1998), Can Asians Think?, Singapore: Times Books International. Mamdani, Mahmood (2004), Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, New York: Pantheon Books. Onuf, Peter (2006), ‘Conflicting ideas of secularism cloud “ideal” of secular democracy in Middle East, panelists say,’ March 2, retrieved 27 January 2008 from http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/news/2006_spr/jb_religion.htm. Origuchi, Shinobu [1928] (1975), ‘Daijosai no hongi’ (Real meaning of great found offering ritual) and ‘Shinto ni arawareta minzokuronri’ (The logic of the nation in the discourses of Shintoism), in Origuchi Shinobu Zenshu (The complete works of Origuchi shinobu), Vol. 3, Tokyo: Chuokoron-sha. OSS (1943), ‘Japanese Infiltration Among the Muslims Throughout the World,’ 15 May 1943, R&A890, Office of Strategic Services Research and Analysis Branch, in O.S.S./State Department Intelligence and Research Reports, I Japan and Its Occupied Territories During World War II, Reel I-9. Roussillon, Alan (2005), La Pensée Islamique Contemporaine: Acteurs et Enjeux (Contemporary Islamic Thought: Actors and Issues), Paris: Teraedre. Said, E.W. [1978] (2003), Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient, London: Penguin. Sayyid, Bobby S. (2003), A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism, 2nd edition, London: Zed Books Ltd. Shatz, Adam (2003), ‘The native informant’, The Nation, April 28, 2003.
8. On constitutional pacifism in postwar Japan: its theoretical meanings Shin Chiba We, the Japanese people, desire peace for all time and are deeply conscious of the high ideals controlling human relationship, and we have determined to preserve our security and existence, trusting in the justice and faith of the peace-loving peoples of the world. We desire to occupy an honored place in international society striving for the preservation of peace, and the banishment of tyranny and slavery, oppression and intolerance for all time from the earth. We recognize that all peoples of the world have the right to live in peace, free from fear and want. (Japanese Constitution, second paragraph of the Preamble) 1. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes. 2. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized. (Japanese Constitution, Article 9) So-called pacifism is no longer an illusion or utopia; pacifism is the only realism of life left to us in this apocalyptic situation of threatening world annihilation. Pacifists are the realists of life, and not merely voices of utopia. (Jürgen Moltmann, 1983)
I INTRODUCTION: THE PEACE CONSTITUTION IN CRISIS It is widely known that the Constitution of Japan, often called the ‘Peace Constitution’, which was promulgated on November 3, 1946 and went into effect on May 3, 1947, is based on three fundamental principles: popular sovereignty, fundamental human rights, and pacifism. One might justifiably say that over 60 years these three fundamental principles, despite adverse trends and tensions under conservative post-war politics, have fared well enough as post-war Japan’s public philosophy. This is, as we shall see later, a unique type of public philosophy in its intimate and necessary coupling of democracy with pacifism. Moreover, the important point to note is that the type of pacifism as stipulated in the Japanese Constitution does not 128
Constitutional pacifism in post-war Japan
129
simply mean ‘anti-war-ism’ or ‘war-opposition’ in a broad sense of the terms, as defined, for instance, by Jenny Teichman (1986). As Teichman’s discussion presupposes, the notion of pacifism as anti-war-ism or waropposition is strongly against ‘aggressive war’ and ‘non-discriminatory war,’ but does not necessarily contradict the concept of ‘self-defense war’ or ‘just war.’ The pacifist principle of the Constitution of Japan, however, upholds the idea of radical pacifism—tetteiteki heiwashugi—in my terminology. It demands rendering all wars illegal. This is because the fundamental principle of this constitutional pacifism goes back in international law history to the stipulation of the ‘outlawry of war’ in various historical documents: the Covenant of the League of Nations (1919), Anti-war Treaty (1928), and the UN Charter (1945). In addition, the idea of the outlawry of war in the Japanese Constitution has taken a step further by renouncing in principle military power as means of settling international disputes, thus aiming not to retain any military force or war potential. The first clause of Article 9 clearly stipulates the renunciation of war as the sovereign right of the nation. The second clause upholds the non-maintenance of military forces and war potentials as well as the renunciation of belligerent rights (jus belli). What we find here is not a vague or watered-down pacifism based on anti-war-ism or war-opposition but rather a strong assertion of radical pacifism with a very different nature. This is why the Constitution of Japan is often called the Peace Constitution. However, when it comes to the post-war Japanese government’s policymaking and actual conduct, the principle of pacifism in the Constitution was in fact consistently under threat from about 1949 onward. This was due to the onset of the Cold War, which brought about America’s shift in its Far Eastern policy. And this in turn had a great impact on the post-war policy of Japan’s conservative administration. Under the order of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), General Douglas MacArthur, the National Police Force was formed in 1950, which became the National Safety Forces in 1952 and the Self-Defense Forces (SDF/Jieitai) in 1954. From the early 1990s Japan’s defense budget has consistently been among the five largest in the world, and is the largest among non-nuclear powers. In November 2001, the Japanese government sent the SDF overseas, to the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. This dispatch of the national forces was made for the first time since 1945, that is, the defeat of the Pacific War. In December 2002, a year later, an Aegis destroyer and accompanying support vessels were dispatched to the same waters to support the United States’ and the Allies’ military operations in that region. These acts were made, as was explained, in order to make koho shien, that is, ‘aids in behind’, meaning the cooperative support in the rear for the frontline fighting. And in December 2003, a year later, the Air Self-Defense Forces (ASDF) were
130
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
sent to Iraq, and this was immediately followed by the dispatch of the Land Self-Defense Forces (LSDF) to Samoa in Iraq in January through April 2004. The government explained that these acts were undertaken for ‘humanitarian and the nation-building purposes.’ LSDF withdrew from Iraq on July 2006 and yet ASDF still remains in operation there. Thus, the constant post-war crisis associated with the principle of pacifism in the Japanese Constitution has reached a definite turning point. We are faced with a situation witnessing a breach of the social contract of post-war Japan’s pacifism, something similar to what Robert N. Bellah (1975) refers to as a ‘broken covenant.’ We can say this, because it is possible to consider any kind of act establishing a Constitution as a settled social contract both among the citizens and between the citizens and the government (see, for example, Arendt, 1976; cf. Chiba, 2003). What is meant by a broken covenant here then is a situation where the Japanese people’s tacit social contract with the government in which the principle of pacifism was accepted and upheld has been breached by the government. As is broadly recognized, Japanese national politics has entered the stage of ‘constitutional politics’ (Ackerman, 1991; 1998). But this constitutional politics is not the one coming spontaneously from below, that is, from the popular basis but rather a kind of quasi-constitutional politics or a government-initiated constitutional politics. On October 28, 2005 the Koizumi administration at that time published the ‘Draft for the New Constitution.’ The Draft includes the replacement of the second clause of Article 9 with wording that endorses the ‘maintenance of a Self-Defense Military Force.’ The following Abe administration avowedly proclaimed that it aimed at the constitutional alteration during its own term. Although the Abe administration suddenly collapsed, I expect that the coming three years, or more, will stage Japan’s crucial constitutional politics, ‘Battle of Sekigahara,’ as we might say in Japan. It also means that our de jure public philosophy of constitutional pacifism in post-war Japan is facing a decisive crisis on the stage of its national politics. Thus, it is evident by now that the de jure public philosophy of constitutional pacifism has not entirely dominated the public discourse in post-war Japan. As already mentioned above, the conservative politics led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has made a series of flexible interpretations of Article 9—‘constitutional amendment by interpretations’ (kaishaku kaiken)—so as to mutilate it. Not only that, the de jure public philosophy of constitutional democracy and pacifism has sometimes collided with what I would like to call a de facto public philosophy of economic growth. To be sure, the early decades of the post-war history often found both public philosophies consonant with each other. This was partly due to the policy of economic growth combined with social welfare. Social
Constitutional pacifism in post-war Japan
131
welfare became the priority policy agenda in post-war national politics, pursued by the ruling party and shared by the opposition parties. However, the last 10 to 20 years have witnessed an increasing tension between the two public philosophies, especially due to the newly adopted neo-liberal economic policy in the ruling parties. This economic neo-liberalism has replaced the older social welfare economy. Thus, we are witnessing the hermeneutical and political conflict, either apparent or tacit, regarding the public philosophy of the country at the level of both national politics and civil society in Japan of today (cf. Chiba, 2007).
II THE MEANINGS OF CONSTITUTIONAL PACIFISM John M. Maki wrote in 1993: ‘There has been constitutional controversy but no crisis. This stability demonstrates much about the actual operation of Japan’s constitutionalism’ (p. 39). But now the era of optimism is gone, and the debate about the constitutional amendment, as we have seen, has become one of the most important agenda items of Japanese national politics. Given this current situation of top-down constitutional politics, we should reflect once again on the meanings of constitutional pacifism embodied in the Preamble and Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. In the beginning of this chapter I set forth the relevant sections on constitutional pacifism in the Preamble and from Article 9. In these sections, we can see such principles as the right to live in peace, the renunciation of war, the non-possession of military power and war potential, and the rejection of the right to engage in war (jus belli). Here we can ask the questions: What kinds of pacifism lie behind these constitutional principles? What constitutes the essential tenets and premises of post-war Japan’s constitutional pacifism? What have been, are, and will be the theoretical and practical meanings of post-war Japan’s constitutional pacifism? This chapter cannot respond to all these questions, but it will, nonetheless, address at least some of them. Anti-war-ism I would like to begin our discussion by briefly examining the types of pacifism that can be observed today at the threshold of the 21st century. I would also like to examine their connections with constitutional pacifism. First, we have already seen a type of pacifism characterized as ‘war-opposition’ or what Teichman (1986) called ‘anti-war-ism.’ This pacifist posture rejects the type of warfare classified as ‘non-discriminatory wars,’ ‘aggressive wars,’ and
132
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
‘nuclear wars.’ But this type of pacifism admits to the possibility of a ‘selfdefense war,’ and considers the possibility of reacting against the invasions by enemy states and enemy groups. This anti-war-ism has found a considerable number of supporters in post-war Japan, as well as in the rest of the world. In the context of the peace movement in post-war Japan, this anti-war-ism type of pacifism has successfully mobilized popular opposition to the use of atomic and hydrogen bombs and to experimentations with nuclear weapons. There is little doubt that post-war Japan’s constitutional pacifism has gained great support and sympathy from the supporters of this type of pacifism: anti-war-ism. Pacifism by Peaceful Means Second, since around 1980 we have witnessed a pragmatic type of pacifism, which has taken a practical approach to conflict resolutions and peacebuilding. This second type of pacifism was discussed and undertaken by the pioneer post-war peace researcher and practitioner, Johan Galtung. This Galtungian pacifism aims at achieving ‘peace by peaceful means’ (see, for example Galtung, 1996) in the concrete, conflicts-laden situations. Although Galtung himself shows some hesitancy to call himself a ‘pacifist’ due to traditional pacifism’s inclinations to moralism and absolutism (see Chapter 10 written by Galtung in this volume), I believe that this approach constitutes an important and promising type of pacifism today. One might call it pacifism by peaceful means. Peaceful means include dialogue and diplomacy among the parties in conflict, third-party efforts of conciliation and reconciliation, and third-party mediation and arbitration, and so forth. This pragmatic pacifism focuses on the concrete task of achieving conflict resolution and peacebuilding in specific situations. In post-war Japan, however, this pragmatic type of pacifism has been fatally weak, and I suppose that the weakness of this type of pacifism has been the main reason for the failure of Japan’s government or civil society to implement constitutional pacifism through concrete diplomatic measures and practical actions. Although this pragmatic pacifism has yet found relatively few supporters and practitioners in Japan, this approach has gained considerable pervasiveness and popularity in the countries of Europe and North America. War-abhorrence Pacifism The third type is what one might rightly call ensen (war abhorrence/war weariness) pacifism. Cases of this type of war-abhorrence pacifism have been frequently observed among the common people throughout Japanese
Constitutional pacifism in post-war Japan
133
history. This pacifism has often led to the rejection of conscription and military service. But the rejection of military service and war per se does not necessarily come from the rejecters’ courageous conscientious objection. Rather, this avoidance of war grows from the sense of abhorrence that many people have about war experiences. It has often assumed the form of escape rather than that of outright rejection. In the past, this warabhorrence pacifism has often been negatively evaluated in comparison with more active types of non-violent pacifism; and it has often been regarded as expressing wholly passive and inactive, cowardly, and noncooperative behaviors and attitudes. However, in recent years, this warabhorrence pacifism began to be re-examined and re-evaluated in a different light. For example, Japanese political theorist, Toshio Terajima, has suggested that the rejection of conscription in Japanese history is a category of pacifism that serves as a genealogy of hidden pacifism in Japan (see, for example, Terajima, 2004; 2007; cf. Fukase, 1987a). In my view, this third type of pacifism is highly relevant to constitutional pacifism of postwar Japan: the people of Japan overwhelmingly welcomed the Peace Constitution, because they had a deep understanding—from their own painful war experiences—of the evil, tragedy, futility, and stupidity of war as such. Thus, the Preamble and Article 9 of the post-war Constitution were the natural expression of ordinary people’s painful feelings about the miseries of war. Network Pacifism The fourth type of pacifism we need to consider is the recent ‘global peace and justice movement.’ This newer type of pacifism, based on a global citizens’ network for peace, justice, and human rights, is usually carried out by various types of NGO groups and voluntary associations. This type of pacifism can be called network pacifism or grassroots pacifism and it can now be observed beyond the borders of the nation-states. In addition to anti-war networking, NGO groups and voluntary associations involved in network pacifism support global peace, human rights, minority rights, gender equality, the environment, and so on. These groups are connected transnationally—often by means of newer communication technologies such as the internet and e-mail. The first incident that alerted the world to the presence of network pacifism was the so-called ‘Seattle Incident’ of 1999. On that occasion, NGOs, citizens’ associations, and peace and environmental groups assembled in the US city of Seattle to protest the international conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) (see Chapter 11 by T.V. Reed in this volume). Similarly, global peace and justice movements were mobilized right before the Iraq War, when anti-war
134
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
demonstrations took place in major cities of the world, including New York City—and the world witnessed the participation of several million war protesters around the world (see Chapter 12 by David Cortright). In these cases, pacifism was no longer confined to a minority group—for example, to those within Peace Church traditions, such as the Mennonites, the Quakers, the Brethren, and so on. Today the practice of this new pacifism has quickly spread throughout the world to diverse religious and secular groups and traditions. In contrast, when Japan’s Peace Constitution was promulgated 60 years ago, there was little support from a pacifist global citizens’ network. Today, no one can deny that the future prospects for retaining the Peace Constitution depend in large part on the global support of network pacifist groups. In this connection I would like to recall the ‘Hague Appeal for Peace’ adopted at the Hague International Civil Society Conference held in May 1999. According to ‘Ten Fundamental Principles for a Just World Order’ issued at the conference, the first principle is stated as follows: ‘Every Parliament should adopt a resolution prohibiting their government from going to war, like the Japanese [Constitution] article number nine.’ We can see here a symbolic incident where Japanese constitutional pacifism can be connected with this type of network pacifism of the concerned citizens of the world. Two Interpretative Categories: Absolute Pacifism and Radical Pacifism Needless to say, among the four types of pacifism discussed above, the first and third types, that is, anti-war-ism and war-abhorrence pacifism have lent strength to the struggle of the so-called ‘pro-constitutional groups’ (goken jinei) against the political forces that for 60 years have wanted to amend Japan’s Constitution. Especially significant was the emergence of antinuclear war pacifism, which started with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At any rate, both anti-war-ism and war-abhorrence pacifism have been highly instrumental in the pervasive and solid range of popular support for constitutional pacifism in Japan. But in addition to anti-war-ism and war-abhorrence pacifism, we need to pay close attention to four additional types of pacifism that have been highly influential in keeping alive the pacifist spirit of Article 9. The first position is pacifism of demilitarization (hibuso-shugi), the second is nonwar-ism (hisen-shugi or hisen-ron); the third is non-violent pacifism (hiboryoku-shugi), and finally, pacifism of war abolition (senso-haizetsushugi). Thus, to understand constitutional pacifism in post-war Japan, we need to examine these types of pacifism as well. In my view, these types of pacifism are nothing other than essential elements of post-war Japanese constitutional pacifism.
Constitutional pacifism in post-war Japan
135
Moreover, in my own interpretative scheme of pacifism, these four types of pacifism enumerated above both constitute and belong to the category of radical pacifism (tetteiteki heiwashugi). To be sure, as Yoshiki Oota argued (2007), they can also be called absolute pacifism (zettaiteki heiwashugi), for this absolutist position also includes various types of pacifism such as pacifism of war abolition and non-war-ism that seek the absence of war. But I would prefer to use the category of radical pacifism to that of absolute pacifism to express these four types of pacifism, because historically the latter, that is, absolute pacifism, has been closely associated with pacifism of non-resistance as advocated by the Mennonites up until the recent times, Lev Tolstoi, and others.1 Pacifism of demilitarization Thus, with these considerations in mind, let us now turn to the fifth type of pacifism: pacifism of demilitarization. This is really the essential part of Japanese constitutional pacifism, because Article 9 of the Constitution renounces war, abjures the right of belligerency by the state, and advocates the non-possession of military forces and war potentials. Clearly, the pacifism of demilitarization is a conspicuous trait of Japanese constitutional pacifism. During the Cold War era this pacifism of demilitarization was often referred to as ‘pacifism of demilitarization and (permanent) neutralism.’ For some, this position also implied non-resistance. But for others—like Masashi Ishibashi (who led the Japan Socialist Party in the 1980s)—taking this pacifist position did not always entail non-resistance. For Ishibashi (2006), the pacifism of demilitarization could also include popular and multi-faceted non-violent resistance, such as boycotts, nonco-operation, and general strikes. In expressing the security design to materialize this pacifism of demilitarization and neutralism, the second paragraph of the Preamble has included the words: ‘We, the Japanese people, desire peace for all time and are deeply conscious of the high ideals controlling human relationship, and we have determined to preserve our security and existence, trusting in the justice and faith of the peace-loving peoples of the world.’ As a matter of fact, ‘trusting in the justice and faith of the peace-loving peoples of the world’ meant a commitment by the Japanese government to earnest diplomatic efforts to solve international conflicts. But at the same time, in the late 1940s when the Japanese Constitution was promulgated, many peoples and governments around the world had high expectations for United Nations peacekeeping initiatives. Therefore, ‘trusting in the justice and faith of the peace-loving peoples of the world’ also meant a constitutional commitment to a world security strategy, to be carried out by transnational military and police forces under the leadership of the United Nations.
136
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
Non-war-ism Next, I would like to examine the sixth pacifist position: non-war-ism. Clauses of Article 9 testify both that constitutional pacifism goes beyond the pacifism of anti-war-ism and can be equated with that of non-war-ism. This pacifism of non-war-ism is part of an international law tradition that upholds the principle of the ‘outlawry of war’ and hence makes every war illegal. This non-war-ism in modern Japan has a rich and long-standing intellectual tradition that goes back to the ideas of such diverse thinkers and scholars as Emori Ueki, Kanzo Uchimura, Tanzan Ishibashi, Tadao Yanaihara, Shinobu Tabata, and Jin Masaike (Chiba, 1992). Non-violent pacifism The seventh type of pacifism is that of non-violence or non-violent resistance. This non-violent tradition certainly goes back to the Quakers, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others. This non-violent pacifism has often been regarded as the same as the absolute pacifistic position of non-resistance. However, both types of pacifism are distinct from one another. For example, the position of non-resistance is not particularly suited to serving as the basis for general state policy, since this type of pacifism is basically part of an individual’s ethics and code of behavior, with the overtones of Max Weber’s Gesinnungsethik (an ethics of pure motivation). In sharp contrast with this, the position of non-violent resistance is not merely committed to the moral integrity and rightness of behavior but also looks for good results and political efficacy. In this sense, the pacifism of non-violent resistance can be correctly characterized as a position that manages to bridge the two tension-filled postures: Weberian ethics of pure motivation and Verantwortungsethik (an ethics of responsibility or good consequence; Weber, 1982; cf. Chiba, 1996). Using Kantian terminology, a pacifist of the non-violent resistance school resembles what Kant called a ‘moral politician’ rather than a ‘political moralist’, for a pacifist of nonviolent resistance seeks to combine moral wisdom (Weisheit) and political prudence (Klugheit) in a tension-filled dialectic (Kant [1795] 1984). Therefore, the radical pacifist in the non-violent strain not only upholds the moral legitimacy of his or her position but also seeks political effectiveness. In this sense, this position can be regarded as being both moral and political at one and the same time. This pacifism of non-violence or non-violent resistance can be rightly interpreted to express the spirit of constitutional pacifism in the Japanese Constitution. This non-violent pacifism like non-war-ism depends both on the dynamic employment of peace diplomacy by the government as the main strategy for keeping the national security. But at the same time, this position, unlike non-resistance pacifism, allows the populace to resist
Constitutional pacifism in post-war Japan
137
aggression and occupation by invading forces. But the means for this resistance are non-violent: non-co-operation with the aggressors, general strikes, boycotts, conscientious objection, civil disobedience, and so forth. It should be noted that this non-violent pacifist position was advocated in the 1970s by scholars like Mitsuo Miyata (1971) and Naoki Kobayashi (1971). Today scholars of the younger generation such as Asaho Mizushima (2001), Akihiko Kimijima (2004), and Toshio Terajima (2004) have been advocating a non-violent pacifist interpretation of Article 9 (cf. Chiba, 2003; 2005). The non-violent pacifistic interpretation of Japanese constitutional pacifism can be a valid and appropriate hermeneutical position, for the ‘right to live in peace,’ as declared in the Preamble, can be correctly understood not simply to be a fundamental right of individuals but also to be the nation’s right of self-defense. Article 9 does not necessarily deny the nation’s rights of self-preservation and of self-defense. These rights are part of the nation’s right to live in peace. Article 9 only rejects the nation’s right of engaging in self-defensive war. If these interpretations are right, then it follows that an invaded nation can resist aggressive forces. That is to say, as Gene Sharp argued, nations can engage in series of non-violent resistance by means of ‘non-violent defense’ and ‘demilitarized defense’ in the spirit of ‘civil defense’ and ‘social defense’ (Sharp, 1990; see also Terajima, 2004, pp. 213–59). Pacifism of war abolition The eighth and last type of pacifism that I would like to examine in this section is that of war abolition. This is the pacifist heritage that goes back in the modern Western tradition to San Pierre, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant. This pacifist idea can also be traced back to the thought of Isaiah, a prophet of the 8th century BC in ancient Israel. It received an intellectually refined and compelling expression in Kant’s classic, Zum ewigen Frieden, ([1795] 1984). This classic presented a number of stimulating and interesting arguments. They include, for example, the gradual abolition of the standing army, the establishment of the republican polity as the civil constitution, the need for constitutional government, and the establishment of a confederation of free states. These claims were eloquently stated by Kant, in order that they might bring forth the conditions for ‘abolishing all kinds of war’ and establishing ‘perpetual peace.’ These arguments were presented by Kant, based on his conviction that to realize peace is the ‘highest good of politics.’ These claims and arguments proffered by Kant remain shocking, novel, and fresh to readers of every generation who come across them. These ideas on war abolition arrived in Meiji Japan and inspired influential intellectual leaders at that time:
138
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
Chomin Nakae, Amane Nishi, Emori Ueki, Kanzo Uchimura, Isoo Abe, and others. These thinkers advocated, in one way or the other, the need to abandon military force and to abolish war. Years later, this Kantian pacifist strain of war abolition came to fruition in the United Nations Charter and in the Japanese Constitution in the middle of the 20th century. Post-war Japan’s constitutional pacifism makes sense, when it is seen from this perspective of the pacifism of war abolition.
III REALISTIC ASPECTS OF CONSTITUTIONAL PACIFISM Types of Realism In this section I would like to re-examine a view on the Constitution prevalent among supporters of the constitutional amendment that the pacifist principle of the Constitution is a mere utopia and illusion in the Realpolitik of the early 21st century. I would like to suggest that Japanese constitutional pacifism possesses an element of realism especially when we look at it in its historical context. To be sure, the Constitution contains an undeniable strain of idealism. This can be seen, for instance, in the Preamble where the expression ‘high ideals’ of seeking for durable peace appears twice. First, the beginning of its second paragraph reads: ‘We, the Japanese people, desire peace for all time and are deeply conscious of the high ideals controlling human relationship, and we have determined to preserve our security and existence, trusting in the justice and faith of the peace-loving peoples of the world’ (my italics). Second, the same phrase appears in the fourth (last) paragraph of the Preamble: ‘We, the Japanese people, pledge our national honor to accomplish these high ideals and purposes with all our resources’ (my italics). This strain of idealism is certainly both an expression and an origin of the Constitution’s radical pacifism that we have already seen. But one has to keep in mind that what gave birth to this radical pacifism of the Constitution was not the pressure of SCAP and of other nations. Rather, it was the disappointment, contrition, and remorse for ‘the horrors of war through the action of the government’ (Preamble) shared equally by the people. It was their firm determination not to bring about a costly war again, their sincere aspiration for peace and welfare, their expectation for the new and peaceful Japan and a future world peace. These realistic and concrete experiences and ideas shared by the Japanese people gave birth to, and ensured wide acceptance of, the radical pacifism of the Constitution, and not vice versa.
Constitutional pacifism in post-war Japan
139
Reflecting on the nature and mechanism of life itself, one may not have to think of idealism and realism as an either/or issue. They do not always have to be antitheses, antinomies, or absolute opposites. Often, one can find both idealistic and realistic elements coexisting and combined harmoniously in an individual or in a group life that includes even the realm of ‘bios politikos’ and the nation’s constitutional existence. Proper idealism contains within itself realistic elements, while proper realism harbors in itself some features of idealism. One often finds oneself to be idealistic in order to become genuinely realistic in a concrete and particular situation. And conversely one has to make realistic choices in order to achieve idealism. As Martin Luther King, Jr. (1981, p. 13) indicated by referring to a French philosopher, ‘life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful way.’ One might justifiably say that a well-balanced combination of idealism and realism is an undeniable characteristic of the Constitution of Japan. But how should we understand the essence of ‘realism’ in politics? This is a great question that occupied the minds of astute historians and political theorists alike from antiquity: the age of Thucydides and Ssuma Ch’ien. As is well-known, the antagonism and rivalry between realist school and idealist school has been observed in the field of international politics now for more than a century. The realist school is represented by such theorists as Max Weber, E.H. Carr, Hans Morgenthau, George Kennan, Martin White, or Kenneth Waltz. There is no time and space here to delve into the structure of thought pertaining to realism. Suffice it to say at this point that there can be notably three characteristics of thinking singled out as the basic underlying premises of realism in the sphere of politics. First, the realists have a pessimistic view of human nature and group, which they believe have an unavoidable inclination to evil and selfishness. Second, they harbor a sober view of power that supports and directs politics. Third, using again the Weberian terminology, realists are more committed to bringing about good consequences of politics, that is, an Antwortungsethik, than they are concerned with inner motives of political actors, that is, a Gesinnungsethik. I would like to consider the Peace Constitution and realism particularly in view of the second and third criteria of realism specified above. What I call ‘military-power realism’ entails problems of its own by the standards of the second and third criteria of realism above. Power has several components such as military power, political power, economic power, power of science and technology, power of culture, support of the people, ideology that includes power of ideas and of morals. Militarypower realism is an example of the notion of ‘hard power’ or ‘power politics,’ and one can find a good example of it in the hegemonic neo-imperialist foreign policy pursued unilaterally by the Bush administration in the United
140
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
States. This is a kind of realism preoccupied with, and exclusively dependent upon, the exercise of military power. Military-power realism often does not meet the third criterion of realism, that is, yielding good results, as one can see clearly in the case of the current American hard power realism. According to reliable estimates (AFS, AF and others), the casualties of the Iraq War amounted to the following numbers by September 22, 2007: between 73 445 and 80 061 Iraq civilians (no reliable data on the number of Iraq soldier casualties) were killed; 295 lives of soldiers and civilians of the multinational contingents lost; 3795 soldiers of the US military died. When we think of the approximately 3200 casualties at the September 11 terrorist attacks, these numbers of casualties of the Iraq War indicate a total lack of sound realism in American military operations. The second type of problematic realism is what one might call ‘statusquo confirming realism’—genjo tsuinin genjitsushugi—the type of realism that Masao Maruyama (1995) was particularly concerned with in his critical studies in ‘ultra-nationalism’ and authoritarianism during the pre-war and mid-war Japan. This type of realism is a reflection of the passive and fatalistic attitude often shown by the Japanese populace toward the ‘established facts’—kisei jijitsu—particularly made by the rulers—okami. This realism is manifest, especially when the Japanese populace tend to follow in acquiescence and subject themselves to the given, established reality. This happened to the Fifteen-Year War of Japan, when the nation was gradually led to a series of aggressive acts—which in turn became the established facts as a consequence—on the part of the militaristic Imperial Japan: the Manchuria Incident of 1931, withdrawal from the International League of Nations of 1933, the Invasion of China in 1937, and the Attack of Pearl Harbor in 1941. It seems that during the post-war period, too, this status-quo confirming realism has continued. One might even argue, although this is a bit of an extremist view, that the post-war democratization was nothing other than a result of this obedient submission to the reality of the defeat of war. At any rate, there can be observed a tendency of the Japanese people to regard what happens in history and politics as if these events were mere natural disasters. This submissive attitude can be explained partly in geographical and climatic terms: people would be accustomed to waiting patiently the passing of natural calamities in the land of the Temperate-Monsoon Zone where earthquakes and typhoons regularly hit the land. Now the people are faced with the crisis of the constitutional revision. Once again, will the people resign themselves to the mounting pressure? The realism expressed in the Peace Constitution belongs neither to military power realism nor to status-quo confirming realism. Rather, it belongs to the category of ‘soft power realism.’ This realism takes seriously the
Constitutional pacifism in post-war Japan
141
effective and sustainable power provision procured by non-hard power components such as political and diplomatic power, economic power, power of culture, support and cooperation of the populace, or power of ideas and morals. Constitutional pacifism can be regarded as an expression of a type of rinen teki genjitsushugi (ideas-oriented realism). The Peace Constitution contains the principle of pacifism that denies the reliance on military power but proffers the institutional design for creating and maintaining peace by committing to the effective use of soft power resources such as diplomacy-oriented politics, economic power, culture, moral values, and ideas. One cannot imagine constitutional pacifism without recourse to the belief, strong commitment, and sentiment of radical pacifism shared by the government and the populace alike. Constitutional pacifism does not make sense at all without recourse to wise peace diplomacy and astute political judgment on the part of the government. In the context of Japan’s post-war history some policies and principles have existed that can be regarded as the realization of constitutional pacifism. One may rightly enumerate among them the state’s non-war-ism, measures against the export of arms, non-nuclearism under ‘Three Non-Nuclear Principles’, positive deployment of ODA (Official Development Assistance), and each year’s peace declaration by the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the days of the atomic bombings. They among others have functioned as precious resources and policy proposals that have materialized constitutional pacifism in the concrete context of post-war history. The Preamble and Article 9 Skepticism toward its own government and military power Next, we should take a better look at the essential ingredients of this soft power realism, observable particularly in the Preamble and Article 9. One can rightly identify a conspicuous feature of constitutional realism in its consistent skepticism toward its own government and military power in particular. The ‘realist school’ of international politics often harbors hostile feelings against the enemy state and other nations. But it seldom maintains the same skepticism toward one’s own state power and its military power operation. But the Japanese Constitution is the Basic Law of the country whose government and military fought the most aggressive— and the most bitterly fought-out—type of war in recorded history and that suffered the effects of the atomic bombing. It is the Constitution accepted by the populace because of their immediate experience of the calamity of war. The Constitution bears within it the vivid memory of scars, pain, and suffering that the people had to undergo during the war. This Constitution no longer believes in the possibility of ‘just war’ or ‘righteous war,’ since the
142
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
Manchuria Incident and the Invasion of China were carried out under the deceptive slogan of self-defense and proper national interests. Thus, the Preamble simply states: ‘We, the Japanese people . . . resolved that never again shall we be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government.’ Here one can see the Constitution’s spirit of consistent criticism and skepticism directed toward one’s own government and military.2 One might rightly say that according to the logic of the Constitution the guarantee of the pacifist principle is entrusted to the principle of popular sovereignty, that is, democratic principle. In other words, what guarantees constitutional pacifism by arresting the resurgence of militarism is regarded as residing in the will, decision, and responsibility of the people who are the sovereign. This legal logic of the Constitution is peculiar compared with the normal course of history and developments of Western democracies. For, as is known generally, the notion of the popular sovereignty presupposed the existence of the nation qua the aggregate of citizens who had the responsibility and obligation to defend the fatherland at the risk of their lives in the case of democratic political tradition—particularly republican one—of the West. We still have the relic of this presupposition, for instance, in the 2nd Amendment of the American Constitution, the oldest document still in use, which reads: ‘A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.’ One can also find the similar relic of the idea in the Swiss militia system, which has institutionalized the ordinary citizens to keep arms in houses and to participate in war activities as militia when necessary. But in the case of the Japanese Constitution, the severance of democracy and militarism took place due to its peculiar historical concatenations. This led to the inner and necessary connection between democracy and pacifism observable in the legal logic of the Constitution. Thus, according to the legal logic of the Constitution, to exercise the right of the popular sovereignty on the part of the people as the subject of critiquing the use of hard power of the state is understood to be the institutional mechanism that defends and guarantees the principle of radical pacifism. Article 99 of the Constitution should be understood as specifying the legal logic of the Constitution indicated above: ‘The Emperor or the Regent as well as Ministers of State, members of the Diet, judges, and all other public officials have the obligation to respect and uphold this Constitution.’ Pacifism of immediate experiences A realistic aspect of the Peace Constitution can be also found in the fact that it grew out of taiken teki heiwashugi (Makoto Oda), that is, a pacifism of immediate experiences of the people. These immediate experiences include the utmost experiences of the atomic warfare (Hiroshima and
Constitutional pacifism in post-war Japan
143
Nagasaki). The political theory of the Japanese Constitution presupposes that the terms of politics changed so drastically in the age of nuclear war that the classical statement of Carl von Clausewitz that ‘war is merely the continuation of politics by other means’ no longer holds. It also presupposes that the cost and risk of war exceeds any objective a war might conceivably achieve. It holds that non-war and the resultant world peace alone remain the survival scenario for humankind in the post-nuclear-war politics. What endorses the realism of non-war-ism is the escalation of the destructive capability that the mid-20th-century war technology and weaponry made possible. Thus, it is understood that there can be no war objective, which can justify the war as a necessary means or an effective instrument. It follows from all these considerations that the emergence of nuclear weapons made obsolete the meaning of war as a practical means to achieve a higher end. Normally, pacifism is treated as a matter of individual’s conscience in the West; but in the Japanese Constitution pacifism has become a national and international principle (cf. Sakamoto, 2004). The self-limiting of the state sovereignty Moreover, the political theory of the Peace Constitution also both presupposes and suggests the relativization of the sovereign power of the modern nation-state. For the right of belligerency (jus belli) constitutes the central category of the state sovereignty in the modern Westphalian paradigm of international politics. Thus, the Peace Constitution is an anathema to the modern notion of sovereignty. The first clause of Article 9 proclaims to ‘forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation.’ Its second clause insists that ‘land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potentials, will never be maintained’ and that ‘the right of the belligerency of the state will not be recognized.’ These measures signify that the survival of the earth itself depends on the elimination of the central component of the state sovereignty: the right of belligerency. This constitutional and institutional design for world peace stemmed from the Japanese people’s miserable and humiliating experiences of the defeat of war, its suffering of the atomic bombings, its fear of starvation, and its sense of kyodatsu—lethargy and powerlessness. Here the principle of democracy is intimately and necessarily combined with the principle of pacifism. Democracy coupled with pacifism—certainly a rare achievement— was grounded in the defeated people’s immediate experience of miseries, devastation, and calamities of war. This democracy was bound to be ‘humble democracy’ (political theorist John Keane used the expression in a different context) or rather a type of humiliated democracy that is a sharp contrast to the type of ‘imperial democracy’ or triumphant democracy as we can see particularly in today’s America. This public philosophy of
144
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
humiliated democracy in which democracy and pacifism are organically and inseparably united with one another can be regarded as a unique phenomenon in world history. As John Dunn (2002) indicated in his public lecture on Masao Maruyama, this humiliated democracy, a combination of democracy and pacifism, was possible only under the conditions where democrats like Maruyama participated in a ‘community of contrition.’ They did so with the profound sense of remorse for the atrocities committed by the Japanese imperial military during the Fifteen-Year War.3 This rare combination of democracy and pacifism was initially born out of the debris and ashes of the defeated Japan. As John Dower intimated in Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (1998), defeated people’s ‘hope, resilience, visions and dreams,’ together with ‘misery, disorientation, cynicism, and resentment’ gave rise to ‘unusually chaotic vitality’ with which they seriously began to grope for peace and a new life and to rethink ‘what it meant to speak of a good life and good society’ (pp. 25, 28). Pacifism as a new national principle The pacifism of the Preamble and Article 9 had an element of nationalism, although the proponents of post-war pacifism did not emphasize the nationalistic feature of pacifism. This was because during the 1950s and 1960s the prevailing conservative, nationalistic public discourse strongly demanded the restoration of some of the pre-war values such as fullfledged emperor system and patriarchal family and attempted either to eliminate or to revise the pacifist clauses of Article 9. Thus, post-war pacifism claimed to be anti-nationalistic and internationalist in this particular historical context. However, as recent studies such as Eiji Oguma’s voluminous work on post-war democracy and patriotism show, pacifism was also an expression of nationalism (see, for example, Oguma, 2002; Kato, 2004), for most of the Japanese who welcomed the Peace Constitution found in it the basis for the spirit of national self-reliance. Constitutional pacifism was capable of providing defeated people with a new national identity as the ‘peace nation.’ As Yoshikazu Sakamoto indicated (2004, pp. viii–ix), the unique characteristic of this pacifist nationalism consisted in founding the collective identity of the nation ‘not on the past national tradition but on the sharing of common international mission for the future.’4 The atomic experiences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki became the origin of post-war pacifism of Japan and as such they remained ‘almost a single important national principle’ (ibid., p. 221). As is true with any genuine pacifism, pacifism becomes serious and a real option, only when it is based on the utmost experiences or the Grenzfall an individual, a group or the nation happens to go through. In the case of the Japanese, the
Constitutional pacifism in post-war Japan
145
experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki became the ultimate case, that is, the nation’s Grenzfall. Moreover, this post-war pacifism was a unique type of nationalism, because it sought for such universal values as non-war, world peace, anti-nuclearism and thus became an expression of internationalism as well.5 What was protected by the peace constitution As already indicated, political realism has an inherent demand of Antwortungsethik (the good consequences of politics) and hence possesses a keen interest in the actual result that any political position produces. With regard to the actual fruits of constitutional pacifism over the past 60 years, how can one assess them? What service did the Preamble and Article 9 render for the welfare of the Japanese people in the post-war period? While having some reservations, I would like to answer these questions by claiming that the contribution of constitutional pacifism has been enormous. To be sure, there are some important points to regret with regard to the materialization of the pacifist principle of the Constitution. First, the government’s initiatives for realizing peace policy and diplomacy have been extremely weak and meager throughout the post-war history. One cannot deny the poverty of politics and diplomacy on the one hand and the popular inaction on the other. Second, the task of fulfilling decolonization, war responsibility, and compensation toward the victimized Asian and Pacific countries was not sufficiently carried out. The task of decolonization toward resident Asian peoples within the country has stubbornly remained unsatisfactory as well. The insufficiency of fulfilling war responsibilities for the past crimes of colonization flashed back in the post-Cold War era one after another in the last decade or so. The task of decolonization and war responsibility was never understood as a prioritized policy matter. It was somehow wrongly replaced by the constitutional ‘demilitarization’ in the perception of the government and of the populace as well. Third, the above-mentioned pacifism of immediate experiences has never become deepened and incarnate as the pacifism of reflected experiences. So the pacifist idea and consciousness of the war generation have not been transferred and inherited to the succeeding generation. These shortcomings are serious and remain unsolved today. One might say, however, that what has been protected by the Peace Constitution is considerable. First, thanks to the principle of constitutional pacifism, for the past 60 years no one was killed in the name of Japanese military or SelfDefense Forces. This stands in remarkable contrast to the period between 1931 and 1945, for during the Fifteen-Year War, under the military aggression of the Japanese empire, approximately 20 million lives of the Asian, Pacific, European, and North American peoples were lost and the number
146
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
of Japanese casualties amounted to more than 3 million. (As a point of reservation, there remains the fact that the American military bases within the territory of Japan were used for the American military operations for the Korean War, Vietnam War, and Iraq War. This fact cannot be denied.) As a corollary of the above point, for the past 60 years few young Japanese lines were wasted on the battlefield. Second, although the actual post-war politics gave birth to the SelfDefense Forces and the US–Japan Security Treaty, constitutional pacifism narrowly enabled post-war Japan to keep the shape of a ‘peace nation.’ The presence of Article 9 not only helped prevent post-war Japanese society from succumbing to the resurrection of nightmarish militarism but also nurtured the gradual growth of political culture of peace and safety. This fact is attested by the birth of a number of NGO and NPO organizations and groups in the past two decades or so that are committed, whether directly or indirectly, to peace, non-violence, safety, the protection of human rights, the deepening of democracy, welfare, and nursing care. Taking the development of political culture of peace and safety for example, the statistics of the victims of murder in Japan show that the figure remains between 600 and 900 each year for the past ten years; 752 victims in 1999, 876 in 2002, and 689 in 2004. The statistic of international comparison shows that in 1995, the number of victims per 100 000 people in Japan is 0.60, 70.92 in Colombia and 64.64 in South Africa—they are the worst records— and the comparison with Western countries shows that Japan’s 0.60 stands far better than 8.95 in the United States, 3.87 in Belgium, 3.25 in Finland, 2.30 in France, 1.81 in Germany, 1.58 in Spain, and 1.40 in the United Kingdom (Japan’s Police White Paper, 1996). According to another statistic of the US–Japan comparison by an American political scientist, P. Katzenstein, regarding the killing of criminals by police, while in the case of the United States policemen killed 375 criminals on average per year from 1988 to 1992, only six criminals were killed by policemen in Japan for the ten years between 1985 and 1994, which is to say, 0.6 per year. These statistics seem to suggest that the culture of peace and non-violence has spread to post-war Japanese society as a result of the elimination of the military and the military class in the postwar era. (As a point of reservation, for ‘peace nation’, ‘peace’ here simply means ‘domestic peace’ seceded from ‘Thirty Years’ war’ of Asia, extending from the Korean War to Vietnam War in the neighboring countries of Asia. There has also been an argument that claims that this ‘domestic peace’ was made possible ‘under the nuclear umbrella of the American military.’ This argument was often reinforced by another claim of a ‘free ride on the US–Japan Security Treaty.’ Do these arguments make sense? I have grave doubts about them.)
Constitutional pacifism in post-war Japan
147
Third, another undeniable fact is that the Preamble and Article 9 became the beacon of hope for the development of popular democratic, progressive, and peace movements. Without the institutional backdrop of the Peace Constitution, post-war civil and resident movements for democracy, peace, social justice, pollution, and environmental betterment would have been far more suppressed and subdued than they actually have been. Fourth, constitutional pacifism enabled Japanese society to expend its resources and energy on economic development and social welfare. These consequences were by no means negligible ones. (As a point of reservation, one cannot disregard the fact that Japan here stood as the beneficiary of the Cold War.)
IV EPILOGUE: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CONSTITUTIONAL PACIFISM FOR EAST ASIA AND THE WORLD To be sure, it is always difficult to predict how well the future world will fare and be shaped. But can one not say that at the threshold of the 21st century the Peace Constitution still possesses profound foresight about the future direction and shape that the world will take? Certainly, one might justifiably argue that the world has become much more bellicose and turbulent as seen in the attacks of September 11, and the subsequent Afghan and Iraq Wars. But at the same time one can witness today the rapid growth of peaceful and cooperative region-building effort such as the European Union. And there are a number of arguments available to the effect that the world has already entered a stage characterized by the post-sovereign nation-state paradigm, despite America’s bellicose unilateral stance and hegemonic neo-imperialism. The experiment of the European Union is particularly interesting and suggestive in its effort to point to the idea of the relativization of the state sovereignty. The corollary idea of the sharing of sovereignty was prefigured in part by the Preamble and Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution 60 years ago. At any rate, the Peace Constitution will be able to become the cornerstone for the efforts of peacebuilding in East Asia, only if wise and foresighted diplomacy is secured. While the actual politics and diplomacy of the post-war Japanese administrations have not fully utilized the Constitution, the de jure public philosophy of constitutional pacifism can offer a necessary direction and solid foundation for future politics and diplomacy in East Asia. In order to achieve both reconciliation and regeneration in East Asia, the Japanese government has to express a real and sincere war apology, and accept full responsibility for the war, for the reparation to the victimized nations, and for the compensation to the victimized
148
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
individuals. It will help Japan to make up for the past deficiencies in fully acknowledging war responsibility. The deficiency of Japanese politics and diplomacy and popular inaction also prevented the government and the opposition parties alike from the actual application and realization of constitutional pacifism. This is true not only at the national level but also especially in view of the regional level of East Asia. John Keane, an Australian political theorist of civil society and democracy currently teaching and doing research at the University of Westminster in London, posed the Japanese political theorists a question, asking what they would consider to be a post-war Japanese contribution to democratic theory in the world. This question was raised when he came to Tokyo in May 2005, to deliver two public lectures. At that time I responded to him by saying that we have long criticized the negative aspects of actual post-war democracy and have had little to speak of the positive elements of democracy either in practice or in theory. In line with this argument, however, I now would like to respond to Keane in retrospect in terms of the above-mentioned argument regarding a rare combination of democracy and pacifism that took shape in the Japanese Constitution as well as in Japanese post-war democratic discourse. This combination of democracy and pacifism implied the aforementioned relativization of the idea of state sovereignty by denying its central category: the state’s right of belligerency. This conceptual design for humiliated democracy clearly expresses a departure from the classical conception of the state-military sovereignty long presupposed in the modern Westphalian paradigm of the state theory. One can even claim that the principled denial of self-defense war in the Peace Constitution can be conceived to be a paradigm shift in the history of the modern state and of its theory. The Preamble’s claim that ‘all peoples of the world have the right to live in peace, free from fear and want’ can be construed as another expression of this paradigm shift. ‘The right to live in peace’ cannot be monopolized by any sovereign nation alone but should be shared by all peoples of the world. In the third paragraph of the Preamble one can find the following stipulation: ‘We believe that no nation is responsible to itself alone, but that laws of political morality are universal; and that obedience to such laws is incumbent upon all nations who would sustain their sovereignty and justify their sovereign relationship with other nations.’ Here we can discern not merely the relativization of state sovereignty and the emergence of global citizens’ sovereignty in embryo but also the premise of the decentralized and multilateral world that was conceived in the Constitution (cf. Kobayashi, 1987). The agony of democracy we have experienced throughout the 20th century and beyond in part stemmed from the inability of democracy both in theory and in practice to dissociate itself from the state-military sovereignty (cf. Kato, 2001; Mizushima, 2003).
Constitutional pacifism in post-war Japan
149
Herein resides the durable importance of constitutional pacifism as envisaged in post-war Japan. Constitutional pacifism is based on the political precept of antiquity: ‘Si vis pacem, para pacem’ (‘If you want peace, prepare for peace’). It is ironic, indeed, that the conservative political forces in Japan that have gained momentum today are trying to destroy this treasure of the world named Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. Their guiding political precept also goes back to the time as old as human history: ‘Si vis pacem, para bellum’ (‘If you want peace, prepare for war’). Perhaps we need a new political precept for the future world: ‘Si vis pacem, para pacem et cole justicium’ (‘If you want peace, prepare for peace and cultivate justice’) (cf. Fukaso, 1987).
NOTES 1. This pacifist position of ‘non-resistance’ can be understood to be a moral position rather than a political position. This absolute pacifistic position generally belongs to an individual ethics rather than to a collective ethics such as governing social relationships and the political orientations. 2. Haruki Wada (2002) also speaks of the strong distrust of the military shared by the people at the end of the Fifteen-Year War as the underlying background for post-war pacifism. 3. Dunn (2002) argues as follows: ‘There were idiosyncrasies in Maruyama’s post-war imagining of what it was to be a Japanese democrat—notably his heavy emphasis on pacifism and on the duty to abjure war, even defensive war, as an instrument of policy’ (ibid., p. 14). 4. Sakamoto gave the appellation ‘kakushin nashonarizumu’—progressive nationalism—to this type of post-war nationalism with orientation for universal values such as peace, democracy, socialism, and liberty (2004, pp. 137–204). 5. The national moment of the Peace Constitution was compatible neither with an exclusive and narrow type of nationalism nor with a restorative type of nationalism that glorifies the nation’s past. Rather, it was an innovative type of nationalism open to such universal values as described in the Preamble: ‘peaceful cooperation,’ ‘the blessings of liberty,’ ‘a universal principle of mankind,’ ‘peace for all time,’ ‘the justice and faith of the peaceloving peoples of the world,’ ‘the preservation of peace,’ ‘the banishment of tyranny and slavery, oppression and intolerance for all time from earth,’ ‘the right to live in peace, free from fear and want,’ ‘laws of political morality.’ It should be noted in this connection that constitutional pacifism is clearly positive world pacifism rather than self-enclosed onecountry pacifism.
REFERENCES Ackerman, Bruce (1991), We the People, Vol. 1: The Foundations, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ackerman, Bruce (1998), We the People, Vol. 2: Transformations, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Arendt, Hannah (1976), On Revolution, New York: Penguin Books, pp. 168–78. Bellah, Robert N. (1975), The Broken Covenant: American Civil Religion, New York: Seabury Press.
150
Pacifism, philosophy, religion
Chiba, Shin (1992), ‘Uchimura Kanzo: hisen no ronri to sono tokushitsu’ [Kanzo Uchimura: The Logic of Non-War and Its Features], in The Japan Political Science Association (ed.), Seijishisoshi niokeru heiwa no mondai [The Problem of Peace in the History of Political Thought], Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers, pp. 95–112. Chiba, Shin (1996), Arendt to gendai [Arendt and the Present Age], Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers, pp. 108–19. Chiba, Shin (2003), ‘Sengo nihon no shakaikeiyaku wa haki saretanoka’ [Was the Social Convenant of Post-war Japan Broken?], in Masaya Kobayashi (ed.), Senso hihan no kokyo tetsugaku [Critical Public Philosophy Against War], Tokyo: Keiso Shobo Publishers, pp. 121–58. Chiba, Shin (2005), ‘A Reflection on the Pacifist Principle of the Japanese Constitution and on the Idea of Human Security,’ in Toward a Peaceable Future: Redefining Peace, Security, and Kyosei from a Multidisciplinary Perspective, Pullman, WA: WSU, Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Service. Chiba, Shin (2007), ‘Kokyotetsugaku toshite mita heiwa kenpo’ [The Peace Constitution Seen as Public Philosophy], in Shin Chiba and Masaya Kobayashi (eds), Heiwa kenpo to kokyotetsugaku, Kyoto: Koyo Shobo Publishers, pp. 61–8. Dower, John M. (1998), Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, pp. 25, 28. Dunn, John (2002), ‘Japan’s Road to Political Paralysis: A Democratic Hope Mislaid,’ in Andrew E. Barshay (ed.), Two Lectures by John Dunn, Berkeley, CA: Center for Japanese Studies, p. 12. Fukase, Tadakazu (1987a), Senso hoki to heiwateki seizonken [War Renouncement and the Right to Live in Peace], Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers, pp. 89–91, 131–5. Fukase, Tadakazu (1987b), ‘Daini “Sogoteki heiwa anzenhosho kihonho shian” rongi no susume’ [A Suggestion for the Second ‘Draft of the Basic Law for Integral Peace and Security’], in Hideo Wada et al. (eds) Heiwa kenpo no sozoteki tenkai [A Creative Development of the Peace Constitution], Tokyo: Gakuyo Shobo Publishers, pp. 438–9. Galtung, Johan (1996), Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization, London: Sage Publications. Ishibashi, Masashi (2006), Hibuso churitsu ron [A Theory of Demilitarization and Neutrality], reprinted, Tokyo: Akashi Shoten Publishers, pp. 109–10. Kant, Immanuel ([1795] 1984), Zum ewigen Frieden, edited by Rudolf Malter, Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam Jr., pp. 35–49. Kato, Takashi (2001), ‘Shiso no kotaba: Nijyuisseiki eno kadai’ [Words of Thought: the Agenda for the Twenty-First Century], Shiso, 920(January): 3. Kato, Takashi (2004), Seijigaku o toinaosu [Questioning Again Political Science], Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo Publishers, pp. 63–6. Kimijima, Akihiko (2004), ‘ “Buryoku niyoranai heiwa” no koso to jissen’ [The Design and Practice for ‘Peace non-dependent on Military Forces’], Horitsu jiho [Law Chronicle], 76(7). King, Martin Luther Jr. (1981), Strength to Love, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, p. 13. Kobayashi, Naoki (1971), Kenpo daikyujo [Article 9 of the Constitution], Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers. Kobayashi, Naoki (1987), ‘Atarashii sekai shisutemu no koso’ [Conceptual Design for a New World System], in Hideo Wada (ed.), Heiwa kenpo no sozoteki tenkai [The Creative Development of the Peace Constitution], Tokyo, Gakuyoshobo Publishers, pp. 405–7.
Constitutional pacifism in post-war Japan
151
Maki, John M. (1993), ‘The Constitution of Japan: Pacifism, Popular Sovereignty, and Fundamental Human Rights,’ in Percy L. Luney, Jr. and Kazuyuki Takahashi (eds), Japanese Constitutional Law, Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, p. 39. Maryuama, Masao (1995), ‘ “Genjitsushugi” no kansei’ [The Pitfall of ‘Real’-ism], in Maruyama Masao chosakushu [Works of Maruyama Masao], Vol. 5, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers, pp. 193–209. Miyata, Mitsuo (1971), Hibuso Kokumin teiko no shiso [The Thought of Demilitarized People’s Resistance], Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers. Mizushima, Asaho (2001), Buryokunaki heiwa [Peace Without Military Forces], Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers. Mizushima, Asaho (2003), ‘Kozoteki heiwakochiku to shiminteki kokyoken keisei’ [Structural Peacebuilding and the Formation of the Civic Public Sphere], in Hideki Mori (ed.), Shiminteke kokyoken keisei no kanosei [The Potential for the Formation of Civic Public Sphere], Tokyo: Nihon Hyoronsha Publishers, pp. 19–20. Moltmann, Jürgen (1983), ‘Following Jesus Christ in the World Today: Responsibility for the World and Christian Discipleship,’ in William M. Swartley and Leland Harder (eds), Occasional Papers No. 4, Elkhart, IN: Institute of Mennonite Studies. Oguma, Eiji (2002), Minshu to aikoku [Democracy and Patriotism], Tokyo: Shinyosha Publishers, pp. 67–208, 447–597, 717–92. Oota, Yoshiki (2007), ‘Zettaiteki heiwashugi to kenpo’ [Absolute Pacifism and the Constitution], in Shin Chiba and Masaya Kobayashi (eds), Heiwa kenpo to kokyotetsugaku [The Peace Constitution and Public Philosophy], Kyoto: Koyo Shobo Publishers, pp. 91–5. Sakamoto, Yoshikazu (2004), Sengo gaiko no genten: Sakamoto Yoshikazu shu [The Origin of Post-war Diplomacy: Works of Sakamoto Yoshikazu], Vol. 3, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers, p. 225. Sharp, Gene (1990), Civilian-based Defense: A Post-military Weapons System, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Teichman, Jenny (1986), The Pacifism and the Just War, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 1–12. Terajima, Toshio (2004), Shiminteki fufukujyu [Civil Disobedience], Tokyo: Fukosha Publishers, pp. 188–91. Terajima, Toshio (2007), ‘Article 9 of the Constitution and the Pathway Toward the Abolition of War,’ in Shin Chiba and Masaya Kobayashi (eds) Heiwa kenpo to kokyotetsugaku [The Peace Constitution and Public Philosophy], Kyoto: Koyo Shobo Publishers, p. 38. Wada, Haruki (2002), ‘Sengonihon heiwashugi no genten’ [The Origin of Post-War Japan’s Pacifism], Shiso, 994(December), pp. 7–8. Weber (1982), Politik als Beruf, 6th edition, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 57–67.
PART III
Toward peace diplomacy, pacifism, and peace movements today
9. Upon what principles should foreign policy be based in the 21st century? Thomas J. Schoenbaum I
INTRODUCTION
As the first decade of the 21st century draws to a close, international political relations are dominated by the foreign offices of some 192 states of varying sizes and influence. The population of these countries now exceeds 6.5 billion, by far the greatest number of human beings that has ever lived at the same time. The world is a messy and dangerous place: 42 so-called international ‘conflicts’ exist around the globe.1 A ‘conflict’ can be defined as an international disagreement that is serious enough to create war or a threat of war. Eight of these conflicts are termed ‘major wars’ by the United Nations, which defines ‘major war’ as a war that kills at least 1000 people per year.2 As bad as this is, the world has seen much worse. The 20th century was the bloodiest in human history by far. Two World Wars alone killed some 70 to 80 million people, and from 1946 to 1989 the world was involved in a Cold War between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and the communist ideology it promoted around the world. Although direct war was avoided between the United States and the Soviets, numerous bloody proxy wars and insurgencies were fomented in many countries, resulting in the deaths of millions and widespread destruction. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989–90, the world seemed to enjoy a fresh start. The US ‘victory,’ which was more due to the inherent weaknesses of the Soviet and the communist system than any American action, left the United States as the world’s only unquestioned superpower. But the United States largely rejected its new leadership role. After a magnificent display of diplomatic and leadership skills that successfully drove the forces of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in 1991, the United States experienced the debacle of Somalia, where its peacekeeping forces were humiliated in 1993. As a result, the United States retreated into narrow self-interest and never again took a leadership role to deal with global problems. Now, almost 20 years after the 155
156
Toward peace diplomacy, pacifism, and peace movements today
end of the Cold War, it is clear that the United States has failed to take advantage of the opening created in 1989. Whereas in 1990 many confidently predicted that a ‘new world order’ would emerge under the leadership of the United States, nothing of the kind has happened. In fact, the colossal errors, misjudgments, and mistakes of those in charge of American foreign policy during the past 17 years have eroded American leadership to the point where it appears to be beyond repair. Although the United States is today the most powerful country in the world militarily, with the largest economy, much of the world either ignores, defies, or opposes American proposals and policies. We now live very much in what can be termed a ‘multipolar’ world. Despite the United States’ undeniable military and economic clout, US power and prestige have never been at a lower ebb. Having declared a unilateral ‘war on terror’ without a clearly defined enemy and with little international support, the rest of the world is largely going its own way, dealing with the United States only where and how it must. Uncoordinated international power centers have emerged in various places: China, the Russian Federation, India, Brazil, Nigeria, and Iran. This trend toward multipolarity appears to be only beginning and may well be a defining characteristic of the 21st century. Yet while multipolarity is on the rise as far as nation-states are concerned, the key concept for individual citizens in the 21st century is ‘globalization.’ Never before have individual human beings so enjoyed the ability to communicate, to travel, and to do business anywhere in the world. This new mobility is far from complete, but it seems destined to grow, fueled by advances in communication, transportation, and technology that cannot be denied. In fact, governments around the world (with a few exceptions such as North Korea) have, to a greater or lesser degree, embraced globalization, with the result that products, services, and money move around the world relatively freely as never before. Despite some negative impacts, it is no accident that, as a whole, the world economy has never been more robust. This trend toward globalization seems certain to increase and appears to be one of the key characteristics of the 21st century. Looking beyond these two characteristics, is it possible to predict what the 21st century holds in store for the world? On the one hand, we may be in the midst of a relatively peaceful, prosperous era, especially compared with the last 100 years. Warfare, while still a problem, appears to be isolated and confined to a few chronic hot spots; battlefield and civilian deaths are relatively few compared with the slaughter of the past. The economic output of the world is vast and growing; every continent is experiencing unprecedented growth. New technologies continue to add vigor to our lives. A catastrophe on the scale of what happened in the 20th century seems unthinkable.
Principles of foreign policy
157
Yet we know this could all change in a flash. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction—nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons— continues, and non-state actors as well as states may well use them in the future. Great dangers lurk just below the surface calm of the international scene: unsolved ethnic conflicts remain in many areas; human rights are given only lip service by many countries; environmental disruption is increasingly likely on a global scale; and while much of the world is economically prosperous, billions of people live on less than US$3 per day and do not have access to adequate food, water, or shelter. Disease and natural disasters affect millions of people. In short, the world is far from safe from some global calamity; and even if Armageddon does not arrive, we face a huge set of intractable problems that cry out for solutions. This state of affairs, then, is the context in which we pose the question— upon what principles should foreign policy be based in the 21st century? Since the world will either prosper or die or something in between based primarily upon what decisions are taken in the foreign offices of the 192 states of the world, this is a more than fair question; it is even arguably the most important question of our time. Such an urgent question deserves a clear answer right up front: in order to avert disaster and to manage world problems in the 21st century, the foreign policies of every state in the world must be based—as much as possible—on principles of international law and multilateral institutions such as the United Nations. Of course, this is not put forward as a perfect answer, some sort of magic bullet that will advance humankind into a Golden Age. Neither international law nor multilateral institutions are without serious flaws. But every other alternative is much worse. This chapter will attempt to make the case and to show why this is so, and why the answer to our question involves doing everything possible to strengthen, not to disregard, international law and multilateral institutions.3
II THE FOLLY OF REALISM AND UNILATERALISM Reliance on international law and multilateral institutions, of course, runs contrary to accepted orthodoxy in contemporary foreign policy circles. Rather, the traditional approach to international politics, among scholars as well as practitioners, is to start with the idea that nation-states, like individuals, have interests to promote that will enhance their well-being. This in turn leads to another fundamental supposition: the only way to promote state interests in the international arena is to possess and to wield power. Such power may be derived from many sources—military, economic, social, diplomatic, or cultural power can all be influential. As one of the
158
Toward peace diplomacy, pacifism, and peace movements today
most respected political theorists of the 20th century, Hans Morgenthau, put it, ‘[International] politics is a struggle for power over men, and whatever its ultimate aim may be, power is its immediate goal and the modes of acquiring, maintaining, and demonstrating it determine political action (Morganthau, 1978, p. 15). This view of international relations that makes the concept of interests defined in terms of power as key is termed ‘political realism.’ Those who espouse this creed believe that any person charged with making a foreign policy decision will inevitably identify the individual state interests he or she desires to serve and then evaluate the levers of power that can be brought to bear to further those interests. In this calculation, the link between interests and power is manifest and inseparable. Equally obvious is the inevitable result of statecraft of this kind: assuming rationality and skill on the part of the people in charge, the stronger powers will always prevail in any international transaction. Several additional important points flow from this doctrine of ‘realism’ in foreign policy. First, an assumption is that the international arena is fundamentally ‘anarchical,’ without order or governance of any kind. In this anarchical reality, it is every state for itself. Proponents of this view deny that the term ‘international society’ has any real meaning. A second assumption is that for the most part the interests of each state are fundamentally different and that there is little or no commonality of interest. Some realists would admit that common interests exist but would argue that separate interests are more important. A third assumption is that international cooperation is impossible or very difficult to achieve. Realists believe that even if there are common interests, there are structural obstacles that tend to prevent cooperation. Such obstacles are illustrated by ‘game theory’ of which a prominent paradigm is the so-called ‘prisoners’ dilemma,’ in which two men are in police custody being questioned for a crime they both may have committed. The two men are questioned separately so that they cannot communicate; and each is told by police that if he confesses or implicates the other prisoner, he will be granted leniency. Although the best outcome for both is cooperation in remaining silent, in which case both will go free if the police do not have enough evidence to make their case, each prisoner has a powerful incentive to ‘defect’ by implicating the other or confessing. Similarly, in the international context, nations may have similar interests, but may still fail to cooperate because each nation has a powerful incentive to defect, becoming a ‘free rider’ who will benefit from cooperation without accepting any responsibilities or burdens. For the realist, foreign policy decisions involving the exercise of levers of power are fundamentally unilateral in nature. Unilateralism means that
Principles of foreign policy
159
the nation must act outside the parameters of international agreements and institutions. Thus, for the realist, international law is irrelevant. Cooperation means taking a unilateral decision and using levers of power to persuade other nations to join in what can be termed a ‘coalition of convenience.’ A classic example of such a process of decision-making is the US decision to invade Iraq in 2003. The decision to go to war was made secretly and unilaterally at the highest levels of the US government, and various levers of power were employed to gain the cooperation, first of the United Kingdom, and then from some 35 additional nations that supported the United States in various ways. Now some may argue that the picture I paint of the nature of foreign policy formulation today is not accurate. They might point out the many international ‘regimes’ and intergovernmental organizations to which all modern nations adhere and the impact of non-state actors, such as transnational companies and non-governmental organizations upon foreign policy decisions. They would argue that the world and its leaders no longer follow the path of realism and unilateralism and that many more factors are important considerations. While I concede that ‘realism’ in the classical sense has been modified somewhat by the complexities of the modern world, the realist paradigm still lives, though the labels used to describe what is going on have changed. World leaders still talk in terms of ‘state interests,’ and certainly international power arrangements are still of paramount importance. Examples abound: one need only cite the development of nuclear weapons and materials by Iran and North Korea, clearly for the sole purpose (successful I might add) of asserting their power and state interests. Another recent example is the Russian decision to assert total government control over oil and gas resources in order to make energy a powerful weapon that can be used to threaten and dominate its neighbors. As a final example, we can look to the United States, where in August, 2007, a candidate for US president, Senator Barack Obama, got into deep political trouble for saying he would rule out the use of nuclear weapons to attack terrorist sanctuaries in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Certainly, realism not only still lives, it is the default position for politicians all over the world. This is the case in spite of the changes that have occurred over the last half century—the founding of new intergovernmental institutions, globalization, the fall of communism and the end of the Cold War. Scholars such as Joseph Nye and Robert Keohane (1989) coin the term ‘complex interdependence’ to refer to this new world reality, meaning that the multinational network of alliances and connections between states and intergovernmental organizations makes all states, even the most powerful, dependent in varying degrees on other states and international
160
Toward peace diplomacy, pacifism, and peace movements today
institutions. Yet this ‘interdependence’ is still tainted with realism as the international regimes that are designed to mitigate anarchy and to facilitate cooperation are almost universally weak to the point where they are little more than ‘coalitions of the willing.’ There is little impetus anywhere in the world to strengthen international regimes, and, as a result, powerful states can and do ignore them with impunity; when states do adhere to such a regime, it is more often than not because of a calculation based on power and interests. An example of this attitude is the current state of the United Nations, which all agree is out of date, but no agreement can be reached on its modernization. As a result, the UN Security Council, which was designed to be the most powerful international institution in the world, with a monopoly on the use of force, is gravely flawed, reflecting the world of 1945. None of the five Permanent Members, who have the power to veto substantive resolutions, are willing to consider giving up their privileged status, and proposals to expand the Security Council and modernize its operations are languishing. Complex interdependence and international regimes have so far failed to change the fundamentals of the realist paradigm. During the period of the Cold War, the realism in international relations was tempered by the United States, which played the role of what many term a ‘benign hegemon.’ Through a worldwide system of alliances and economic and military aid, the United States replaced the earlier geopolitical system based upon balances of power with a new system based on collective security and deterrence. The United States retained its leadership position by successful economic and aid policies and frequent consultation. Enemies were subjected to deterrence, containment, and, at times, military intervention. Since the end of the Cold War this system of US benign hegemony has crumbled, but nothing has been found to replace it. US foreign policy lacked direction and substance under the eight years of President Bill Clinton, and under President George W. Bush the United States embraced new policies based on American exceptionalism and supremicism. From 2001 to the present, US policy-makers have embraced the idea that US security requires the worldwide adoption of economic and political liberalism—defined as free markets and democracy. Believing these values are absolute and nonnegotiable, the United States rejects multilateralism and the rule of law in international affairs unless these coincide completely with predetermined US policies. As a result, the United States has largely rejected or undermined many international regimes such as the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, and the UN Convention on Climate Change. The United States asserts the right to engage in virtually any type of unilateral action within its power, including ‘regime change’ with respect to states it regards as enemies.
Principles of foreign policy
161
As a result of this failure of US leadership and the inability of any other nation in an increasingly multipolar world to exercise leadership, peace, security, and prosperity of the world are increasingly at risk. The world only courts disaster by allowing the present state of affairs to continue unchecked. It is time for the adoption of a fresh paradigm for international relations for the 21st century, one that reflects the characteristics of the post-Cold War era.
III
THE CASE FOR LIBERAL INTERNATIONALISM
What is needed is a new paradigm to guide foreign policies and international relations to suit the changed conditions of the 21st century and to avoid the mistakes of the past. An inquiry that seeks to establish such a new foundation must look beyond how international relations are commonly conducted to articulate a vision of how they should be conducted to save humankind from the scourge of war and other past disasters. In other words we pass from what ‘is’ to the realm of what ‘ought’ to be. We are in search of a normative theory of international relations—how the world should be ordered and the value choices decision-makers should make— rather than the domain of empirical theory that seeks to explain how current decisions are taken. In fact, our point of departure is that, considering the discordant state of the world today and what can be termed the international anarchy of the foreign policies of 192 states, we have to do better. Considering the history of the past 150 years—to choose an arbitrary number—the theoretical paradigms that have guided past foreign policy decisions have failed, in many cases miserably. Certainly, realism, both classical and so-called neorealism, although these have dominated decision-making, cannot be regarded as successful. The grand strategies of the past, such as (1) maintaining a balance of power among major states; (2) collective security through alliances; and (3) reliance upon a ‘benign hegemon’ (most recently the United States), have not worked very well. We need a fresh basis for international relations to take the place of these and other careworn ideas. In the first place we need to establish broader goals for international relations than in the past. We should not be content with the approach that concentrates on national security that seeks to maximize national defense. The major threats to international well-being in the 21st century are instabilities that stem from disease, poverty, and deprivation of basic human rights, environmental degradation, corruption, and ethnic and civil unrest. In the 21st century a new definition of security has emerged—human security— subdivided into at least three dimensions: state security, humanitarian
162
Toward peace diplomacy, pacifism, and peace movements today
security, and environmental security, reflecting the fact that international threats no longer arise primarily from external aggression. On January 31, 1992, the United Nations Security Council adopted the following understanding of security in the post-Cold War world: The absence of war and military conflicts amongst states does not in itself ensure international peace and security. The non-military sources of instability in the economic, social, humanitarian, and ecological fields have become threats to peace and security. The United Nations membership as a whole, working through appropriate bodies, needs to give the highest priority to solution of these matters.4
Second, we need an operational strategy for establishing this new form of international security to replace the outworn policies and strategies of the past. The best way to do this is to establish a new form of international society based upon the rule of law. The rule of law is as essential to international society as it is to domestic order. There are two essential elements that go together hand in hand in order to establish an international rule of law: (1) respect for international law; and (2) strengthening and enhanced use of international institutions. International law and multilateralism must replace realism and unilateralism as the new touchstones of foreign policy in the 21st century. Critics may dispute whether this radical new departure is possible, but I advance three reasons for believing the world has evolved to the point where the next logical step is the establishment of an international rule of law. First, I am convinced by the ideas of ‘constructivist’ scholars of international relations who argue that the basic assumption of neo-realist theory, that the state of international ‘anarchy’—the lack of a higher authority or government—is a structural condition of the world of states that makes legal concerns marginal or irrelevant, is erroneous. Rather, the reason anarchy is endemic to the state system is simply because states themselves have chosen to make this assumption. That is to say, the condition of anarchy, to the extent it persists, is artificially ‘constructed’ by the majority of states. Anarchy need not be an inherent fact of state-tostate relations. Constructivist theory holds that states themselves—especially the most powerful states—can choose to alter this anarchy simply by choosing (constructing) to abide by international rules and norms and to work through international institutions. In this way, it is possible to change and go beyond the anarchic nature of the world of states (Wendt, 1992). Second, the world of the 21st century is profoundly different from the past. For the first time in human history, we live in a truly ‘globalized’ world, where we have instant communication and free movement of goods,
Principles of foreign policy
163
services, capital, and even people to an extent never before imagined. This fact opens the way to changes in the state system and new concepts of international relations. In the past, individual state interests were predominant, in the sense that each state had its own ideas and interests that it sought to further in international diplomacy and transactions. Thus, international relations were too often a zero-sum game in which winning a point had to produce a corresponding loser, and ‘win-win’ transactions were the exception. In this environment anarchy and realism inevitably flourished and international society could be characterized as composed of atomistic, selfseeking states doggedly pursuing their individual interests. In the world of today, however, no longer do individual state interests play the predominant role. In most areas of international concern, community and even global interests are now pre-eminent. For example, in economics, no state—not even the big powers—can flourish outside the system of world trade that has been carefully constructed since the 1940s and has given the world the greatest prosperity in history. In the area of the environment, all states have an interest in dealing with environmental degradation that inevitably will affect all states; no state can remain unaffected by the environmental policies of its neighbors and even states on the other side of the globe. No state can remain aloof from such matters as disease, poverty, and deprivation in other countries. In today’s world the effects of such scourges may well be felt in all states. Thus, in the 21st century, in contrast to the past, there is a commonality of state interests, and such common interests can only be addressed adequately by coordinated actions. No state is powerful enough to satisfy these common interests or even its individual state interests without multilateral international help. A third reason for the idea that the time has come for the establishment of the rule of law in international relations is the tremendous growth in international law and international institutions during the 60 years beginning at the end of World War II. The United Nations Charter in 1945 began and is still the key to this process, but now in every field of human concern there is an extensive body of international law as well as functioning intergovernmental organizations. Of course, this work to construct international law and society is far from complete; it is an ongoing process. But we have come a long way. International institutions must be greatly strengthened and the law reformed, but we have made a good start. A new global order can be fashioned for the 21st century if nations—particularly the most influential nations—decide to construct it. An encouraging statement in this regard was recently forthcoming from Laila Freivalds and Jack Straw, the Foreign Ministers of Sweden and the United Kingdom, respectively, which reads as follows:
164
Toward peace diplomacy, pacifism, and peace movements today
International law is a common baseline for all international relations, and central to our efforts to build a safer and more prosperous world. The postwar multilateral system, centered on the United Nations, has helped to prevent major world conflict for 60 years. . . . International law is also a framework for constructive collective action. (‘A global order based on justice,’ International Herald Tribune, September 15, 2003)
IV
THE ELEMENTS OF THE NEW GLOBAL ORDER
There are two principal elements to constructing a new global order to guide international relations in the 21st century: (1) respect for international law and (2) appropriate use of multilateral institutions such as the United Nations. Both these points demand further elaboration. International Law International law has a long and storied history dating at least from the 17th century, when the figure now regarded by most as its founding father, the Dutch lawyer, Hugo de Groot (also known as Grotius), penned a tract advocating legal restraints on the decision by sovereign states to wage war.5 But despite its antiquity, international law today is a rather weak and decentralized system, compared with many of the national systems of law of the world. This is because, with the rise of the nation-state, national legal systems have become very complex and sophisticated. Legal officers, mainly lawyers and judges, must study and train for years to become versed in even one national legal order. This is so because national legal orders differ markedly from one another, although there are two roughly similar ‘families’ of national laws: on the one hand, the civil law system that makes code and statutory law central to legal applications; and, on the other hand, the common law, which emphasizes legal reasoning and decisions made by judges in handing down particular cases. In contrast, international law, although greatly influenced by national legal systems, is a distinct legal system that, at least in theory, is applicable on a global basis. So lawyers on every continent and in every country should learn and apply the same body of law. International law has its own distinctive characteristics—most importantly as to sources, interpretative techniques, dispute resolution, enforcement, and sanctions. As to sources, since there is no world government or recognized legislative body, the international legal system has developed an elaborate system of sources of law and law-making. We can distinguish three principal and two subsidiary sources of international law:
Principles of foreign policy
165
Principal sources: ●
●
●
Treaty law. A treaty is defined broadly to include all types of agreements between states and between states and among international organizations. A treaty is a unique type of law-making however, because the rights and liabilities of non-parties to treaties are generally not affected. Treaties may be bilateral or multilateral, but most of the important ‘law-making’ treaties are multilateral, frequently including scores of parties. Examples abound, including, for example, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, and the North American Free Trade Agreement. And many of the most important treaties are virtually universal, such as the Charter of the United Nations. More than 400 000 treaties are registered with the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs. Customary law. Custom has the ability to create law through repeated and widespread observance that evolves into a sense of legal obligation. Two elements are necessary for custom to become ‘law.’ First, custom in the form of state practice—acts and pronouncements of all kinds—must be widespread and applied for a relatively long period of time; second, there must be an expectation commonly expressed and held that the relevant state practice is required by law, not by comity or courtesy. Obviously this presents difficulties in application and customary legal doctrines are often rather vague. An example of such customary law is the doctrine that a state is responsible for avoiding and paying compensation for any significant harm caused from its territory to another state. Since customary law is so ill-defined and uncertain, its doctrines often make their way into treaty law and given sharper normative content. For example, 43 states have concluded a Convention on Transboundary Air Pollution (1302 UNTS 217) (1979) to develop specific agreed limits on certain forms of air pollutants that have transboundary effect. General principles of law. International law accepts as a source those general principles of law that are generally accepted and a fundamental part of national legal systems. Such general principles include, for example, the requirements of equitable treatment and due process of law.
Subsidiary sources: ●
Decisions of international tribunals. Although the decisions of international tribunals such as the International Court of Justice, are
166
●
Toward peace diplomacy, pacifism, and peace movements today
directly binding only on the litigants themselves, such decisions have an important universal effect because subsequent courts in taking decisions will inevitably accord respect to the judgments, doctrines, and reasoning of the past. Subsequent court decisions will usually be consistent with past decisions dealing with the same or similar subject matter. Writings of legal experts. International law formulations are frequently heavily influenced by the views and writings of scholars and experts.
States are the main creators and beneficiaries of international law, but the system covers more than just states—international organizations are creatures of international law, and companies and other business entities as well as individuals can both derive rights and incur liabilities from this body of law. For example, an oil spill at sea will implicate various treaties that create liability for owners and operators of tankers; all human beings derive (at least in theory) human rights protections under the UN system of human rights; and individuals are also subject to prosecution for international crimes. International law, like law in general, has a transformative effect on its subjects. Without law there can be no society in the sense of a social group larger than one family in which the members have recognized reciprocal rights and duties toward one another. In national societies, law has the function of relating all persons within the scope of its jurisdiction to one another. For example, in a typical day you may pass or deal with thousands of individuals whom you do not know or know very slightly. Yet the law demands that you treat each one of them fairly in the sense of fulfilling your promises and debt transactions and avoiding injuring anyone either intentionally or through carelessness. Thus, through law you have a relationship with everyone in society, even total strangers. Law in fact is what creates and sustains civil societies and social intercourse. International law plays the same role on the international plane. Only through law are states, international organizations, and individuals bound together in an international society. The maintenance of this society depends on keeping the obligations set down by law. Of course, in no system of law is there universal compliance with legal obligations. International law rules are breached just as national law rules are broken. Although tremendous advances have been made in international law over the past half-century, much needs to be done to usher in a true international rule of law. In particular, the major powers, led by the United States, need to make clear their priority in reforming international law so that it can both constrain potential lawbreakers and serve as the
Principles of foreign policy
167
essential basis for solving international problems and disputes. Not only must the substantive content of the law be improved, but four essential procedural values must also be upgraded: 1.
2.
3.
4.
Implementation. If international law is to be the basis of international relations, all states must pledge to implement relevant international law norms into their own political and legal system promptly. Implementation often presents difficulty because each individual state must act according to its own constitutional system if international law norms are to become binding as domestic law. For example, in Japan, implementation is accomplished when the prime minister submits relevant legislation to the Diet; in the United States, implementation is more complex, requiring in many cases a two-thirds approval by the United States Senate. Compliance. Once international law is implemented, the legal norms created must be fully observed and carried out. Once laws are fashioned to address an international problem, the issue of compliance is paramount. Enforcement. If an international legal norm is agreed but not implemented or complied with, the question comes up of whether it is possible for other interested states and individuals to bring an enforcement action to compel compliance. Enforcement is traditionally a weak point of the international law system, but many enforcement tools can be employed. New methods of enforcement of international law norms should be developed, and in appropriate cases, international tribunals should take jurisdiction. On the one hand, coercive enforcement measures are possible, such as fines, retorsions, countermeasures, and various forms of sanctions. On the other hand, it may be more productive to offer help or to employ incentives as enforcement devices. International bodies such as the UN Security Council may also become involved in enforcement matters, particularly in serious cases. Dispute Resolution. Disputes are common in international relations, and often there is a legal dimension that can help to settle the dispute. Article 33 of the United Nations Charter requires all states to settle international disputes by peaceful means, and very sophisticated and variegated methods of international dispute settlement have been developed in recent years. Negotiation and the use of diplomacy is still the most frequent method of international dispute settlement, but other effective methods are available, including good offices, conciliation, mediation, and arbitration. Many international organizations have been developed to aid in dispute settlement, such as, for example, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
168
5.
Toward peace diplomacy, pacifism, and peace movements today
There are also many international tribunals: the International Court of Justice has general jurisdiction, while other courts, such as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the World Trade Organization, have more specialized jurisdiction. Effectiveness. Even if international law norms are scrupulously observed, the question of their effectiveness will be very important. New methods of evaluation of legal and political solutions must be developed to ensure that problems are adequately managed and addressed by international legal and political regimes.
Multilateral Institutions Multilateral institutions play essential roles in the world today. Although such institutions are created by states, once created they have their own separate legal personality and can deal with issues and problems independently or in coordination with states. Multilateral institutions also have the capacity to deal with ongoing problems and difficulties in the area of their expertise. They can also offer a forum for dispute settlement among their members. These institutions—sometimes called international regimes— present advantages that no state can unilaterally accomplish. The United Nations and its specialized and affiliated agencies are the key multilateral institutions in the world today. Not only does the UN system deal with international peace and security, but specialized agencies play essential roles in combating current problems, such as—for example —world health (the World Health Organization); the oceans (the International Maritime Organization); international economic relations (the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization); workers (the International Labour Organization); the environment (the UN Environment Programme); cultural affairs (the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization); and economic development (multiple agencies: especially the UN Conference on Trade and Development and the UN Development Programme). Of course, multilateral institutions, including the United Nations are far from perfect, and in fact are in need of reform, but necessary changes can happen only if member states, led by the most powerful and influential, make this a high political priority. Unfortunately, political will has been sorely lacking and, with few exceptions, only lip service has been given to reform and progress at the United Nations.6 Is it better to work through multilateral institutions rather than taking unilateral action? At first glance it may seem that multilateralism is an inferior solution to a problem: diplomacy always takes time and effort; and the resultant policy may reflect a compromise that is not optimum.
Principles of foreign policy
169
Nevertheless, in almost every case, multilateralism is worth the extra effort, and there is a better chance of success through bargaining and compromise. Out of many case studies that could be cited for the truth of this assertion, I will detail just one important matter that is very much still with us: the Iraq War. The invasion of Iraq by the United States and the United Kingdom in 2003 was certainly one of the biggest blunders in history, costing hundreds of thousands of lives, untold misery for millions of people, and a probable irreparable setback of America’s world prestige. At the time of writing the Iraq War is still an ongoing fiasco, the result of a unilateral decision to take military action by the administration of US President George W. Bush. This elective war in violation of international law may be usefully contrasted with the 1991 Gulf War for the purpose of expelling Iraq from Kuwait, which was invaded and conquered illegally by Iraq. In 1991 the UN Security Council had authorized military action against Iraq, and the Gulf War was conducted strictly observing international norms. The Gulf War was concluded quickly and successfully. The unilateralism and failures of international diplomacy leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq began in the mid-1990s when it became clear that President Saddam Hussein of Iraq was hampering the effort of the UN weapons inspection program by restricting its access to key weapons sites. Although it was later established that in fact the UN inspection program had successfully terminated Iraq’s various programs to develop weapons of mass destruction, when Saddam abruptly threw out the UN inspectors in 1998, the US administration of President Bill Clinton acquiesced after mounting a four-day bombing campaign that was mainly for show. President Clinton’s error enabled the Bush administration, which had secretly planned for an invasion to change the regime in Iraq, to mount an American troop build-up beginning in 2001, ostensibly for the purpose of compelling Saddam to accept renewed inspections, but really for the purpose of invading Iraq to install a Western-style democratic government. The UN Security Council responded to the US actions by passing Resolution 1441 in November 2002, which declared Iraq to be ‘in material breach’ of its obligations under previous UN Security Council resolutions and giving Iraq ‘one last opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations.’ Iraq in response gave in; Saddam acquiesced fully to unrestricted new arms inspections. However, shortly after the new inspections began, on March 20, 2003, the United States and the United Kingdom launched an invasion of Iraq, simply informing the UN Security Council by letter shortly after military operations had begun. Despite this maltreatment, the United Nations has tried to play a constructive role in Iraq with little help or encouragement from the United
170
Toward peace diplomacy, pacifism, and peace movements today
States. In May 2003, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1483, which authorized a new UN peacemaking effort. Very unfortunately, the UN Special Representative, Sergio Viera de Mello as well as many other UN workers were killed in a terrorist bomb attack in August 2003, signaling renewed conflict that has now become civil war. Despite this setback, in June 2004 the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1546, which endorsed the new, interim government of Iraq and requested assistance for the rebuilding of Iraq. A UN team of experts played the key role in training the Iraq Independent Election Commission that organized the successful and widely praised Iraqi elections in January 2005. Despite these efforts, the United States continues its insistence on unilateral actions in Iraq, now amounting to a futile effort to quell the ongoing violence and to establish a stable government. To virtually everyone except the American administration it is clear that the American policy has failed. The best hope for Iraq and even for the Americans is now a UN-led diplomatic effort to promote political reconciliation among the warring factions and reconstruction of the country. It is obvious that theses tasks are beyond the capacity of the Americans who are perceived by most Iraqis as Western occupiers and who have little understanding of Iraqi customs and culture. To this end the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1770 in August 2007, which is a renewed mandate for a UN Assistance Mission in Iraq. After five years of unilateral bloodshed and futility the possibility of effective multilateral action still remains in Iraq. How much better it would have been—even allowing for mistakes along the way—if multilateralism instead of unilateralism had been the consistent remedy for the Iraqi problems, and if the United States had consistently eschewed unilateralism in Iraq.
V
CONCLUSIONS
In the 21st century we must strive for a goal that has long eluded humankind: international peace and security. To accomplish this we must create a new kind of international society based upon the rule of law. Such a basis for international relations is not perfect, but is superior to all others, as is evident from the mistakes of the past. International society based on the rule of law is ‘the path not taken’ (Schoenbaum, 2006) because the most powerful states have yet to realize its merits. What are the characteristics of this new policy that political scientists call ‘liberal internationalism’? Why can this basis for international relations succeed? There are several reasons to believe that the time has arrived to create an international rule of law:
Principles of foreign policy
1.
2.
3.
4.
5. 6.
7.
171
In the world of the 21st century, for the first time in human history the domination of one group of people over other people or peoples will not be tolerated. Hegemony by any means—military, economic or cultural—is now impossible, and will be even more so in the future. Thus, no state or people—however ‘benign’—can hope to exercise dominant power to order global affairs to their liking. The application of naked power that has so often been successful in the past is no longer desirable or possible. The only acceptable international society today is one that is based on justice and fairness for all peoples and all nation-states. Only the rule of law can establish justice for all peoples in global affairs. Whereas in the past, individual state interests dominated international relations, now the collective interests of humanity are more important than individual interests. In the interconnected world of the 21st century, no state can ignore conflicts, wars, denials of human rights, environmental degradation, terrorism, poverty, and disease happening anywhere in the world, no matter how far removed. The world has become so small that every state is affected by events and conditions all over the world, and none can afford to ignore problems that in former times were considered remote and unimportant. No state has the power to deal unilaterally with world problems, even those that directly affect its own security and interests. No state can adequately deal with problems such as terrorism, climate change, and ethnic conflicts around the world. Every state is vulnerable without help from international society. Collective action exercised through multilateral institutions is the most effective way to address global problems. International law and multilateral institutions have come of age during the past century of progress toward creating an international society. Much more needs to be done, but important new methods of international dispute settlement and cooperation have been created since 1945. The kind of power that is relevant today is ‘soft’ power, the power of leadership, diplomacy, and ideas. Powerful states, such as the United States, have an opportunity to create this new global order through the application of soft power. Only through this method can the United States regain the leadership position it once enjoyed, and which has largely eroded in the post-Cold War era.
Of course, international law and multilateral institutions are today weak and ineffective in many respects. But the way forward is to improve and reform them. We have made great progress since the terrible world conflagration that ended in 1945, and if we continue to improve the
172
Toward peace diplomacy, pacifism, and peace movements today
international system, we may see a marked difference—a new global order based on law and justice—by the centennial of the United Nations in 2045.
NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4.
For a list of ongoing international conflicts, see www.globalsecurity.org. Ibid. For a fuller treatment of this theme, see Schoenbaum (2006, pp. 70–92). Statement by the UN Security Council on January 31, 1992, quoted in Kunugi (2005, pp. 13, 14). 5. Grotius (1625), De Jure Belli ac Pacis [On the Law of War and Peace]. At this time the socalled Thirty Years’ War was raging in Europe. 6. Two key reform proposals have so far been ignored. For the needed reforms of the UN system, see UN Secretary-General (2004; 2005).
REFERENCES Keohane, R. and J. Nye (1989), Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition, 2nd edition, Boston, MA: Little-Brown. Kunugi, T. (2005), ‘Redressing Security Deficits in our Fragmented World: U.N. Perspectives and Beyond,’ in Yoichiro Murakami, Noriko Kawamura, and Shin Chiba (eds), Toward a Peaceable Future, Pullman, WA: Washington State University, Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy, pp. 13, 14. Morganthau, H. (1978), Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 5th edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 15. Schoenbaum, T.J. (2006), International Relations: The Path Not Taken, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 70–92. UN Secretary-General (2004), Report of the UN High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, United Nations. UN Secretary-General (2005), In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All, United Nations. Wendt, A. (1992), ‘Anarchy is what states make of it,’ International Organization, 46(2).
10. Foreign policy pragmatism and peace movement moralism: can the gap be bridged—or tertium non datur? Johan Galtung I JUXTAPOSING GOVERNMENT AND NONGOVERNMENT, THE PEACE MOVEMENT To understand better where peace research may be heading, let me juxtapose governments and one special non-government, the peace movement. The governments of the state system of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, in a Eurocentric view of history, were successors to feudal lords, kings, and emperors. These governments entered the cycle of violence–war–peace with ultima ratio regis—the king’s last argument, the gun. To he or she who has a hammer the world looks like a waiting nail. But that also holds for the peace movement, the negation of the government: to he or she who has a mouth the world looks like an attentive ear. Realism as a doctrine is based on the ultima above, that is, it is a doctrine based on force, not on persuasion from basic principles, bargaining with incentives, or decision-making by authoritative bodies. A derivative of this thesis would be that the final word belongs to whoever has superior force, that is, to the big sticks of the big powers. In the present world this is AngloAmerica; a peace proposal unacceptable to the United Kingdom and the United States is not ‘realistic.’ The supreme goal of the realist will be security, meaning a low probability of being hurt/harmed by the violence of any other. The underlying philosophy here is that evil exists, ready to turn violent for violence’s own sake, and that the only countermeasure to this threat is to maintain sufficient strength to deter and/or crush evil—thereby producing security. Idealism as a doctrine is based on persuasion from basic principles, particularly from those principles held to be universally valid and even selfevident. Such principles tend to be of the ought rather than the is variety, like the sacredness of (human) life, meaning (human) life should be 173
174
Table 10.1
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
The government movement and the peace movement
1 Actors 2 Basic mode 3 Epistemology 4 Theory
5 Method I 6 Method II 7 Method III
8 Method IV
Government Movement
Peace Movement
Foreign office-military Realism based on ultima ratio Empiricism fact-based pragmatism Security paradigm based on strength Humans tend toward evil Elite conferences Negotiating harmonized national interests Demonstrations of – incentive power – threats of force Violent action, like bombing
Permanent, conjunctural Idealism based on ratio Criticism value-based moralism Persuasion paradigm based on moral strength Humans tend toward good People’s meetings Resolutions, advocacy Demonstrations of – moral power – people power Non-violent action like economic boycotts
considered sacred. But what if other does not share that noble view? Or, if the other believes that ‘in a war there are only losers.’ But what if winning can be defined as losing least? This is an endless debate, with strong statements about one’s belief in human nature. Words, words, words. Let us try to present the two positions along some dimensions, in no way claiming that the juxtaposition is complete, or that there is not a solid range of variation. What we are looking for is, of course, a way of bridging the gap between the actors, even for a contradiction that is bolstered by solid hatred on both sides, and influences the use of violence, or non-violence. For example, a Gandhian boycott of the United States might work, but mass demonstrations might not. This is a clear case of thesis versus antithesis, at least as presented in Table 10.1, though we are not denying that reality is more complex. It does not follow that the alternative, a tertium, has to be a synthesis. Dialectics offers three non-exclusive possibilities: a positive transcendence (a synthesis, accepting basic features of both); a negative transcendence (denying the validity of both); and a compromise (picking some of this and some of that). We are talking about two world views, both views found within the same societies, and not only in the West; although throughout the world, we sense the contradiction between carry-overs from a feudal faith in force and an enlightenment faith in human ratio and appeals to reason. Realism, as spelt out above, would make allies of the carriers of AngloAmerican world dominance in today’s world—the United States of
Foreign policy pragmatism, peace movement moralism
175
America—and would say Yes-Yes-Yes to Washington, DC. And idealism would make the peace movements in the United Kingdom and the United States say No-No-No to whatever comes out of their foreign offices. The world views are so contradictory that they become each other’s antithesis. And yet we see in the present concrete case of the ‘US-led coalition’ in the war in (and over) Iraq, that one government after the other has defected from the coalition. Without necessarily saying so, these governments actually do what their peace movements have demanded: they pull out of Iraq. But this is more an act of protest on their part than an alternative peace policy. The best way to explore these two peace discourses further is probably not by elaborating further on them, but by asking the question: how can the contradiction between discourses be transcended, if at all? There are eight jobs according to the table, so let us look at all eight. But first permit me a little note from my own autobiography. I refused military service and became a conscientious objector in 1951, because I found the governmental approach unacceptable. In 1954 I refused the alternative ‘civilian service’ because it was only a way of saying ‘No,’ not a way of serving peace. The outcome was half a year in prison during the winter of 1954–55, to express a more extreme ‘No.’ I have lived this contradiction between discourses: at one time (early 1960s), I was at the same time some kind of consultant to the Norwegian foreign office, a member of the board of War Resisters’ International (in London) and president of the organization’s branch in Norway. And I was unhappy with them all: one was essentially built on bullets and bombs, the others built on words. So I will try to guide the reader toward a peace profession as something arising out of this contradiction, because that is how it came about in my case. As an effort to bridge the gap. Obviously we are looking for an actor, the peace professional, who could transcend this government–peace movement dichotomy. The idea that governments are somehow on Track 1 and non-governments on Track 2 freezes this dichotomy in its present form. And it begs the question whether governments are not often on Track 1 with the hope that non-governments could compensate and bring about Track 0 as a resultant. Given the damage governmental diplomacy is capable of, this is a highly optimistic view. We need a better answer.
II
THE EMERGING PEACE PROFESSION
Some features of this answer are clear. First, a peace professional will have governments and non-governments as clients and dispense advice to both.
176
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
As in the health profession, the skills of the peace professional would be equally available not only to friend and foe, but also to uniformed (government) and civilian (non-government). The peace professional would not think in terms of friend–foe or uniformed–civilian, but in terms of actors desperately in need of any advice that might move the actor system closer to peace. Peace is a relation among actors, that is, a system, not the property of one actor alone. The peace professional would engage in dialogues with the individual actors, but would keep the actor system topmost in his or her mind. Second, the peace professional rejects violence, as does the peace movement, based on an idealism of the heart. But the peace professional combines this idealism of the heart with the realism of the brain. This leads to a concrete peace by peaceful means: a rejection of violence less on moral grounds than on pragmatic grounds. Violence does not work. Shedding blood in a battlefield is like leeches sucking blood. Not only does it not work, it may even make matters worse. While not denying some preventive and curative effects of a minimum (threat of) violence, this approach would exclude violence from the repertory of peace-creation, building more on ratio, less on ultima. A third characteristic of the peace professional also marks a basic difference with the past. Without rejecting empiricism (linking theory and data), and criticism (linking data and values as basic modes of intellectual activity), the peace professional will focus on the third possibility: constructivism, linking values and theory. The values emerge from the legitimate goals of the parties to a conflict, and the theory emerges from viable realities. The idea would be to search for a new reality where the parties are comfortable that their goals can be sufficiently accommodated. Imagine a child busily adding and subtracting integers, establishing that 5 7 7 5 12, moving on to 75 2, and then running into a wall when trying to tackle the problem of 57. The contradiction between being mathematically correct and handling the problem of 57 dissolves the moment negative numbers, a new mathematical reality, have been introduced. And, the child is no longer stuck. The challenge is to find a way not to be stuck between the pragmatism of linking data to theories and the moralism of linking data to values. The peace professional will look for something new, like a physician who has realized that if the body’s ‘system’ had sufficient self-healing capacity then it would already have produced good health. Neither single-minded empiricism, nor single-minded moralism will help, although they should not be disregarded. An intervention bringing in something new is needed, for peace as well as for health.
Foreign policy pragmatism, peace movement moralism
177
The fourth issue faced by the peace professional is that both the security and the persuasion paradigms fall short as desirable options. The former fails because efforts to deter by violence may stimulate an arms race; and efforts to crush by violence may produce trauma, stimulating a violence race with a vicious cycle of retaliation. And the persuasion paradigm fails, since it is based on neither ideas, incentives, nor threats. Neither facts nor values are sufficient guides for action. The parties get stuck. A government confronted with insecurity—a risk of violence—derives an action agenda from the security paradigm. Neither the most brilliant analysis à la Noam Chomsky, nor the most stinging moral admonitions à la Pope John Paul II, can provide guides for action beyond the status quo of ‘No, No, No.’ This is where the peace professional enters, first focusing on unresolved present conflicts, on ‘unconciliated’ trauma from past violence, and on unresolved conflicts in the past—and then finding constructive actions. A rich action agenda. This calls for mediation for the conflicts of the present, and for conciliation for the conflicts of the past (dropping the ‘re,’ as in reconciliation, since this has a connotation of restoring a not necessarily desirable past). This is the essence of the peace paradigm. Deep conflicts exist. They may lead to violence. There is a way out: solve the conflicts, present and past. If done well, we get peace, not just security. But these are only two of the tools in the tool chest of the peace professional. Here is a longer list of remedies: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
peace research and peace studies; basic needs satisfaction, peace culture, peace structure; goal restraint and consequence analysis; mediation for conflict transformation by peaceful means; anger control; peace-building, with peace education and peace journalism; non-violence and soft peace-keeping; conciliation for the removal of past traumas from the agenda; creating virtuous peace cycles.
This is not the place to spell out what all these mean. The challenge is for the peace professional to stick to a program of ‘peace by peaceful means,’ while succumbing neither to violent governmental pragmatism nor to the status quo of ‘not in my name’ peace movement moralism. Tool chest items 1–4 above are preventive therapy, items 5–8 are curative therapy, and item 9 builds positive peace into the system, releasing the creative and constructive potential of conflicts rather than only the potential for violence and
178
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
destruction. All these tools in the peace professional’s toolbox are based on a diagnosis of and prognosis for social ills. There is much to do. What tools, then, correspond to the methods used by governments and peace movements (Methods I, II, III, and IV in the table)? How do we respond to the general assumption that direct violence is the smoke that either comes out of the fire of unresolved conflicts, or comes from past violence with no conciliation? Generally speaking, we address this through the power of the word, dia logos, that is, by helping the parties reach deeper insights, rather than by bribing them, threatening them or telling them how bad they are. This, of course, is very similar to one basic practice of psychotherapy: the talking method. For this kind of sociotherapy, violence, like conflict and peace, is a relation. In this case, a system of actors, not only individual actors, is what needs to be changed. The peace professional has to talk with all actors; how he or she talks with them can be disputed. There are schools of thought here as elsewhere, all with some valid points. As in the table, the TRANSCEND (Peace and Development Network) approach has four phases: ● ● ●
●
Method I: Meeting all parties, one-on-one. Method II: Empathic dialogues to elicit creativity. Method III: Demonstrations of – transcending goals, positively or negatively; – creating a new system reality, capable of accommodating the legitimate goals of all parties. Method IV: Joint action to transform the conflict, always checking whether it is working. If not, try Methods I–II–III–IV again.
This approach differs substantially from both conventional approaches, that is, mainstream government action and peace movement action. The moral impulse, the (almost absolute) ‘No’ to violence, is shared with the peace movement, but the pragmatism of Method IV (joint action) is shared with governments. There is no apodictic position, no a priori truth. Everything is tested for its validity and everything has to pass that test. The focus is no longer on one party winning, like ETA or Madrid; nor on all parties winning, the famous win-win situation. The focus is on the relation, the system, on Spain moving forward, into new and better realities. Those who rest on carpets of gold, carpet bombing, or fly moral carpets are often short on ideas. Peace professionals have the opposite profile. Tertium datur.
Foreign policy pragmatism, peace movement moralism
179
III GIVEN A SUPPLY OF PEACE WORK, IS THERE ALSO A DEMAND FOR PEACE WORKERS? Half a century after the modest beginnings of peace research after World War II—including the founding of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA), 42 years ago during those foggy autumn days in London—some of us think we have a solid supply to offer. But, there is always the nagging question: is there a demand out there for peace professionals? There is, and the listener/reader will pardon me for giving as cases what I know best: what I myself have been asked to do or say, during this spring of 2006—from mid-February to mid-June to be specific. Twelve cases (or 12 processes to be more precise), some more successful, some less successful, but all with a certain promise. The initiative often came from a gobetween capable of organizing a direct encounter with one or more of the parties in the conflict. In no case did any of the parties cover any travel expenses. There was no honorarium. But the trip was combined with workshops on mediation, conciliation and so on, and that balanced the budget. One formula, among several? Before delving into individual cases: from what sources would we not expect any such demand (directly, or indirectly) via a go-between? Obviously from actors for whom ‘Winning is not everything, but the only thing.’ Hegemons, maybe, and their challengers? Or actors who think they have mastered the necessary and sufficient skills themselves—actors who think they have need of no outsider’s advice, even advice offered softly under the gaze of four eyes (or eight eyes, if both parties come with a colleague, using the one-on-one formula)? Whatever the reason, this author has not been approached, directly or indirectly, by the United States or by Norway; but has been approached by many other countries, including the United Kingdom. The description of the cases have been pared down to the minimum necessary and sufficient to identify the issue and the nature of the demand for peace professionals (for more details, the reader can consult www. transcend.org): 1.
2.
Denmark vs. Islam, in Geneva. Added to the controversy surrounding the publication of the cartoons, came the Danish refusal to engage in dialogue and the newspaper’s earlier refusal to print cartoons about the ascent of Jesus Christ to heaven (because it might hurt Christian sensitivities), plus the burning of Danish flags and embassies, and threats of economic boycott. The demand was for mediation. Germany vs. the Herero people, in Windhoek. The issue was apology and compensation for the 1904 massacre, compounded by a court
180
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
case against Germany (‘apologizing is admitting’), while other EU members feared the consequences of apology and compensation, and the nature of any compensation. The demand was for conciliation. Sri Lanka, in Vienna. The issue was the breakdown of the ceasefire agreement with the warring parties still hoping to force their own solution. Of the five scenarios—unitary state, devolution, federation, confederation, independence—an asymmetric, bicameral federation still seems preferable. The demand was for mediation. Israel–Palestine, in Berlin. The issue was to build a peace structure around a Middle East Community of Israel and its five Arab neighbors (with Palestine fully recognized according to the UN resolutions), like the European Community for Western Europe after World War II. The demand was for new approaches. Turkey–Armenia, in Istanbul. ‘Something happened’ in 1915, of high complexity and involving many more parties than those two. The search is also for a discourse to articulate what happened in 1915, so that this major issue can be removed from the political agenda, and so that the region can move forward. The demand was for conciliation. The Kashmir issue, in New Delhi. TRANSCEND took the initiative, with a former Pakistani foreign minister, a member of the Indian National Security Commission and myself proposing a ‘new reality’ to accommodate India, Pakistan, and Kashmir. The initiative was well received and discussed at the top levels. The demand was for mediation. Myanmar, in Yangon. A military dictatorship stands for Myanmar autonomy and preserving Myanmar against secession; the opposition is supported by the outside and stands for democracy and human rights. An agenda with all four goals (removing past traumas in favor of cooperative futures) might work. The demand was for mediation and conciliation. Cambodia, in Phnom Penh. ‘Something happened’, indeed, from 1975 to 1979: the Khmer Rouge against Phnom Penh. But in the broader period of 1961 to 1989 (and even before that) much else also ‘happened.’ To select one atrocity for a tribunal to judge may serve punitive justice. But the problem of conciliation remains. The demand was for holistic conciliation. Korea, in Seoul. The Korean War (1950–53) played a major role in the Cold War discourse, and started in 1948 with the Cheju uprising against US occupation. North Korea’s cause, to help South Korea against US aggression, was not unfounded. The demand was for conciliation, using a history commission to explore what happened.
Foreign policy pragmatism, peace movement moralism
181
10. Japan–China/Korea, in Tokyo. The Japanese Prime Minister’s visits to the Yasukuni shrine (that deify uniformed Japanese who died) deepens the war trauma. An alternative memorial dedicated to the uniformed and civilian deceased from all countries, was solicited by, and presented to, a major LDP faction. The demand was for conciliation. 11. USA, in Washington. The US empire is on its way down and US foreign policy must change, but how? Workshops are being organized, but the peace movement is unprepared, as is the Democratic ‘opposition.’ The demand is for peace research and peace paradigms. 12. Mexico, in Puebla. Latin American integration is coming, and one problem will be coordinating foreign policy in general, and coordinating policy toward the United States in particular. Workshops are being organized, but most people seem unprepared. The demand is for peace research and peace paradigms. The listener/reader will have noticed that the demand for peace professionals can usually be formulated in terms of mediation and/or conciliation. But there is also a demand for more basic services, like building peace structures, and for peace research to explore what is needed. But all the other offers in a peace professional’s tool chest, with its nine remedies, are waiting in the background, and these remedies will, of course, sooner or later, be brought up by the peace worker. Does this methodology work? Let us look again at the cases. Number 1 (Denmark and Islam) did. There have been dialogues and the burning of Danish flags has stopped. But an apology, an exploration of the line between freedom of expression and respect for what is sacred to others, and the lifting of the boycott still have to come. Numbers 2 (Germany/Herero), 5 (Turkey/Armenia) and 8 (Cambodia) are complicated and much work is needed. Number 3 (Sri Lanka) looks bad right now (spring-summer 2006), but going to the brink again may possibly produce peace, and not only a ceasefire and talks the next time around. Number 4 (Middle East Community) is probably the only formula for Middle East peace, but is a long-term project, even if it is more needed than ever. Number 6 (Kashmir) may stand a good chance as long as those two leaders are in power, and that will not be forever. Number 7 (Myanmar) has slow dynamism on its side and is compatible with the idea of Myanmar being in control, not some ‘international community.’ Number 9 (Korea) may become an important part in the North–South Korea process. Number 10 (Japan–China/Korea), in one way or the other, will be on the agenda. Numbers 11 (changing US policy) and 12 (integrated Latin America) are for a more conscious near future.
182
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
We are dealing with systems, not with single actors. Peace workers have to become relation specialists—specialists with maximum knowledge about the capacity for peace-making, peace-keeping, and peace-building of all the actors. Obviously, most of these processes take time, like a human being recovering from a complicated disease. And no remedy comes with the guarantee that it will always work. Sometimes, a remedy may even be counterproductive, so be watchful. But the demand for peace professionals is enormous. And, we have much to offer.
11. Globalization and the 21st-century US peace movement T.V. Reed I
INTRODUCTION
The peace movement in the United States in the 21st century is a complicated, multifaceted phenomenon, both because it is heir to many layers of historical precedent, and because in its current form it is embedded in a larger, global movement structure. My approach to social movement analysis is interdisciplinary, drawing both on the social sciences and the humanities, integrating elements from the political, economic, social, and cultural realms.1 My central claim in this context is that to speak of a contemporary US peace movement is to speak of two interrelated phenomena: an anti-war movement focused on US intervention in Iraq, and a peace movement that is part of a worldwide set of forces arrayed against ‘neo-liberal globalization’ policies and practices. The parameters of any social movement are fluid, but designating the parameters of the current peace movement presents more than the usual difficulties. To chart the relationship between the movement against the Iraq War and occupation, on the one hand, and the movement against neoliberal globalization on the other, let me posit an analytical (but not necessarily empirical) distinction between ‘anti-war’ movements and ‘peace’ movements. I take anti-war movements to be aimed primarily at specific conflicts (in this case, Iraq), while peace movements, which continue and sometimes thrive even in the doldrums between wars (though there were few such times in the 20th century) have a wider agenda—they seek not just to end a particular conflict but to establish conditions that will forestall future conflicts. Put in more theoretical terms, anti-war movements address only what ‘negative peace’ (the absence of material combat), in Johan Galtung’s well-known formulation, while peace movements seek a ‘positive peace’ rooted in structural economic, social, and cultural changes. Peace movements, like anti-war movements, have varied immensely in scope and ideological focus, but generally they have understood that questions of peace cannot be divorced from questions of social justice and 183
184
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
geopolitical power. The movement against corporate globalization (mislabeled as ‘anti-globalization’) can be seen as a peace movement in this wider sense, with an anti-Iraq War focus currently included among its positions. The US-based anti-war movement directed against the occupation of Iraq is at once broader and narrower than the peace movement. It is broader because the range of positions opposed to this particular engagement run the gamut from reactionary isolationists to cautious conservatives to moderates and liberals opposed to unilateralism to the socialist and anarchist left. Not all of these constituencies are inherently interested in ‘peace’ as a lasting, long-term possibility resting on significant social change. Thus, I would argue that alongside this ‘big tent’ breadth, there is narrowness to the anti-war movement when contrasted to a peace movement that grows out of a full analysis of global inequalities as the roots of war and insecurity. Yet at least some in each of the varied anti-war constituencies may contribute to a more sustained peace movement, and each is certainly important to the more immediate task of restraining pre-emptive US power. At its furthest reach, the peace movement is marked by a several hundred-year legacy in the form of religious pacifists associated with the 21st-century peace movement who can trace their roots back to the first European peace advocates on what would become US soil—the 17th- and 18th-century peace churches (Quakers, Mennonites, and so on). There are also representatives of liberal and radical strands of internationalism with a lineage dating back at least to the anti-imperialist movement of the 1890s, and of such groups as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, founded early in the 20th century. Drawing on more recent history, the current movement includes representatives of each of the three main waves of peace movement activity in the United States since World War II—the test ban era of the 1950s, the anti-Vietnam War era of the 1960s and 1970s, and the nuclear freeze/anti-intervention movements of the 1980s. Historically, there have been three main strands of peace movement activists in the US tradition—moral/religious pacifists, liberal internationalists, and radical anti-imperialists. Each of these strands is well represented, albeit in somewhat modified form, in the contemporary anti-war and peace movement(s). This historical depth, however, should not obscure the fact that, as has often been the case in the past, a very strong contingent of young activists, mostly growing out of the anti-globalization movement, is a driving force in the movement today. Internationalism as a critique of nationalist warmongering has been a part of peace movements for many generations. But the current form of worldwide movement activity differs both in scale and focus from most predecessor forms. To begin with, while earlier internationalists in the United States tended to be either small, elite cosmopolitan groups of middle-class
Globalization and the 21st-century US peace movement
185
humanist peace advocates, or tightly organized Marxists working in the name of transnational labor solidarity, the new phase, while including small numbers of representatives of both these older forms of internationalism, is much more varied in origins and characteristics, and much more widely representative. Most significantly, the main internationalist impetus to the movement against corporate globalization has come largely from outside the United States, and from ideological diverse grassroots groups.
II FROM THE BATTLE OF SEATTLE TO A MOVEMENT FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE While US activists made a spectacular entry into the movement against neo-liberal corporate globalization via the ‘Battle of Seattle’ in 1999, it was a late entry into a movement already in motion for more than decade. While US movement participants tend to exaggerate the importance of this particular moment to the wider global movement, its importance to the current US peace movement is hard to overestimate. Given the definition I proffered above, the movement against neo-liberal globalization has always been a peace movement, in and outside the United States, even before it became explicitly so in reaction to the US interventions in the Middle East. Thus, in tracing the history of the movement, I mean to outline what I believe to be some of the key political economic roots of insecurity and war, and some of the key forces offering an alternative vision. Tens of thousands of people, representing some 700 organizations worldwide, took part in the ‘Battle of Seattle’ protests in late November 1999. Their immediate target was the World Trade Organization as it tried to hold its ministerial meeting in the ‘Emerald City.’ But the real targets were many, the grievances manifold, and the alternative vision that of a ‘democratic globalization’ to set against the ‘corporate globalization’ embodied in the WTO. The link between these hundreds of organizations was what they saw as a drastically unbalanced world economy in which the 200 richest corporations have twice the wealth of the pooled assets of 80 percent of the world’s population, and in which 50 of the 100 wealthiest economies are not nations but corporations. The Seattle events represent both a moment of convergence for many US social movements and a moment in which US movements were decentered in the context of a global struggle. While Seattle’s mobilization was by no means the beginning of this new movement, for many in privileged seats in the United States, it was the first taste of how strong and varied were the forces arrayed against the global imbalances of wealth, power, rights, and resources. As the Washington Post noted, ‘The WTO meeting was merely
186
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
the place where these people burst onto the American public’s radar. Social movements around the world had already linked into grassroots networks, made possible by the astounding speed at which they can communicate in the Internet era (quoted in Brecher, Costello, and Smith, 2000, p. x). The Seattle events at the close of the 20th century were at once the culmination of the history of US social movements in the second half of the 20th century, and a transformation into something new for the 21st century. It was a culmination because the coalitional events bear the marks of virtually all the major progressive US social movements of the previous century (ethnic rights, feminist, environmentalist, peace, labor, gay//lesbian, etc.), and it is a transformation in that it clarifies a fact too little recognized about those earlier US movements—that they have been profoundly interlinked both nationally and internationally. Some analysts see Seattle as the site where various vaguely linked anti-globalization movements felt themselves becoming a single movement. Others argue that the impact was less dramatically unifying. But all agree that the actions in the seaside city represented a significant turning point where the forces arrayed against corporate globalization took on a new level of self-awareness and confidence. In particular, the forces were emboldened by the sense that the struggle had moved into ‘the belly of the [globalizing] beast.’ In addition to being a successful direct action that postponed and significantly disrupted the ministerial convocation, the gathering in Seattle served as a kind of de facto summit meeting for hundreds of groups critical of the impact of the ‘neo-liberal’ economic policies they saw devastating the planet and increasing the chasm between the rich and the poor. The citizens of the world assembled in the streets of Seattle were labor unionists and environmentalists, lumber workers and forest activists, students and teachers, farmers and cheese-makers, Germans and Ukrainians, Africans and Asians, North Americans and Latin Americans, Johannesburgers and Seattleites, gays and straights, human rights activists and animal rights activists, AIDS activists and anti-nuclear activists, debt relief advocates and consumer advocates, feminists and womanists, computer hackers and meat packers, children and elders, indigenous people and white urban professionals, Muslims and Jews, Christians and Buddhists, atheists and pantheists, anarchists and advocates of one world government. Some wore business suits, some overalls, some wore sea turtle costumes, some leather and piercings, and some wore almost nothing at all. By the time the tear gas clouds and pepper spray winds2 had begun to clear in the late afternoon of November 30, 1999, the thousands gathered gradually learned the news that they had accomplished one of their central goals: they had shut down for a time the convention of one of the world’s most powerful organizations. More important, the direct action and the accompanying mass
Globalization and the 21st-century US peace movement
187
counter-meeting reportedly emboldened delegates from the ‘developing world’ in the ministerial, thus playing a role in the eventual failure of the convention to gain support for a number of proposals thought to benefit only corporate and national interests in the ‘overdeveloped world.’ To understand the kind of ‘peace through justice’ position of this movement it is necessary to ask: what kind of ‘globalization’ were these protesters protesting? Some degree of globalization, in both economic and cultural terms, has existed for at least the last 500 years (since Europeans set out on their colonial ‘adventures’). Because of this long history, critics disagree about the extent to which the most recent manifestation of globalization is wholly new, but most agree that over the last 25 years or so, certain novel features of a transnational political, economic, and cultural system have emerged. Particularly when viewed in combination, these new features represent a significant change in global power relations. The key elements of globalization include: the increased role played by transnational organizations like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO); a weakened role for national governments and parallel increase in the power of multi- or transnational corporate power; new economic practices that greatly intensify the segmenting of the labor force by distributing various parts of the production process around the globe rather than centralizing it in one nation; and new global communications networks. These various processes are then rationalized through a new version of free market political-economic ideology most commonly known as ‘neo-liberalism,’ and implemented through ‘structural adjustment programs’ in the less developed world that promise future benefits in exchange for weakened environmental laws, fewer human rights and worker rights protections, and ‘austerity’ measures that reduce or eliminate social services once provided by the state. The mainstream press describes the movement as ‘anti-globalization,’ but relatively few activists express wholesale opposition to globalization. The activists are more likely to say that they oppose ‘corporate globalization,’ and advocate instead ‘critical globalization,’ ‘democratic globalization,’ or ‘globalization from below.’ Each of these modifiers suggests key elements of the critique: that current forms of globalization are ‘uncritically’ procorporate, that they are ‘undemocratic’ in their lack of transparent representative institutions, and that they are imposed hierarchically from ‘above’ rather than building up though local participation from ‘below.’ Most of the activists say they are not against a global economy, but against the damage to people and the environment done by this particular version of globalization, a version embodied in the current rules set down by the WTO and other representatives of transnational corporate capitalism as mediated through (or in some cases around) the nation-state.
188
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
The protesters believe there is another way to do it, or rather many other ways to do it, based on the principle that the millions of people currently excluded from decisions that dramatically effect their lives should have a say in what a global network of economies, governments, and cultures should look like. They argue that without economic democracy, political democracy, where it even exists, is severely undermined, but they do not propose a uniform (state-socialist, for example) solution. They argue for a pluralism of alternative economic and social forms as the necessary basis for peace, and that, far from bringing democracy with it as promised, ‘free trade’ has more often undermined democracy in the developing world as governments use increasingly repressive measures to manage the social disruption caused by structural adjustment.
III
ORIGIN STORIES
The complexity of the movement also means that it has many origins (and as many origin stories). As journalist-activist Naomi Klein quipped, ‘The movement began 500 years ago, or on November 30, 1999, depending on who you ask’ (in Prokosch and Raymond, 2002). Most would say that its origins lie in a slow process of linking movement groups and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) into coalitions. Much of this array of social forces had been combining or ‘networking’ in a variety of ways for over a decade, coming together in an even larger coalition after Seattle. Important large-scale, international grassroots movement activities that set precedents include: the environmentally focused but multi-issue Earth Summit in Rio in 1992; the broad coalition fighting in the early 1990s against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); a massive wave of strikes and other worker actions directed against structured adjustment policies (SAPs) in Latin America, and elsewhere throughout the 1990s; the ‘50 Years is Enough’ protests at the World Bank’s anniversary meeting in 1994; the International Women’s Conference in Beijing in 1995; the international support for the Zapatista struggles in Chiapas, Mexico, and the ‘Encuentro’ convocations the indigenous activists hosted in 1996 and 1997; the 1998 campaign of environmentalists and consumer advocates that helped sink the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), a draft treaty that sought to loosen controls on international finance; and the global debt relief campaign coordinated by Jubilee 2000 (a coalition including many religious groups with strong representation from African American churches) that during the last half of the 1990s played a major role in bringing about a significant reduction of debt claims against Third World nations.
Globalization and the 21st-century US peace movement
189
Other key international organizing efforts in the 1990s that were important in building elements of the network include the global anti-sweatshop movement, with its US base on college campuses, and the successful campaign to ban the use of landmines. Earlier groundwork had also been laid in the 1980s by the international movement against nuclear weapons, and by the transnational solidarity movements against South African apartheid and US policy in Latin America. Seattle and subsequent events turned a plethora of groups focused on the environment, genetically engineered foods, human rights, consumer protections, women’s rights, labor issues, poverty and debt relief into a far more coherent force focused on a common enemy—neo-liberal policies underwriting disproportionate corporate and state power.
IV
WORLDWIDE WEBS OF MOVEMENT
The organizational pattern by which the disparate groups and interests are linked in the larger global movement is essentially a network of networks. Writer Naomi Klein (2000) sees a parallel between that structure and new computer media: ‘What emerged on the streets of Seattle . . . was an activist model that mirrors the organic, decentralized, interlinked pathways of the Internet—the Internet come to life.’ Networks can be more or less formal, more or less permanent but generally tend toward the informal and impermanent. As the net (or web) metaphor suggests, networks are organized horizontally, not vertically or hierarchically, and their points of connection, or lines of movement, can shift quickly from one path of connection to another. Klein, one of the most astute participant-observers and chroniclers of this network of movement(s), adds: Despite this common ground, these [anti-corporate globalization] campaigns have not coalesced into a single movement. Rather, they are intricately and tightly linked to one another, much as ‘hotlinks’ connect their websites on the Internet. This analogy is more than coincidental and is in fact key to understanding the changing nature of political organizing. Although many have observed that the recent mass protests would have been impossible without the Internet, what has been overlooked is how the communication technology that facilitates these campaigns is shaping the movement in its own image. Thanks to the Net, mobilizations are able to unfold with sparse bureaucracy and minimal hierarchy; forced consensus and labored manifestoes are fading into the background, replaced instead by a culture of constant, loosely structured and sometimes compulsive information-swapping. (Ibid.)
Klein’s analogy is useful, but perhaps a bit too tidy. It ignores, for example, the fact that a network pattern of organizing had been a tried and
190
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
true structure for many direct action movement groups at least since the late 1970s (see, for example, Sturgeon, 1995). It is also not a universally accepted structure among all components of this movement. Some worry that it is a structure that mirrors the chaos engendered by, and works to the benefit of, the current system that social theorist Manuel Castells (1999) calls ‘networked capitalism.’ But Klein’s analogy does point to a crucial cultural dimension of the movement. The connection between the movement and new cybercultures of the Internet is undeniable. Like the flow of information along the Internet, movement networks form and re-form in many different configurations depending upon the need. Klein’s ancillary point, that the movement is not really a single movement, is also insightful. I would argue that what makes the global justice movement interesting and potentially quite powerful is that it both is and is not a single movement. The non-hierarchical, networked character of the (non)movement means that it is not the kind of classic movement with centralized authority and clearly delineated membership that scholars of movements find easiest to study. That type of movement has been supplemented by more network-style structures for a least 30 years, and what we have now is simply, or rather complexly, the global extension of an existing trend in movements. Some activists suggest that the structure of the network is itself a prefigurative model of what ‘globalization from below’ might look like. No one denies the great complexity of the global economy, but all deny that management by corporate executives, state officials, and their ministerial representatives is the only way to run it. For these activists, the organizational power of groups able to reach various kinds of short- and long-term agreements suggests the capacity of ordinary citizens to manage global problems while maintaining local autonomies. Meanwhile, the ‘global culture’ of the Internet does not replace local cultures, but does supplement them in ways that may prove crucial to the success of the movement. Arguments will continue as to how far to take the movement/Internet analogy, but no one denies the importance of new media to the new movement. The movement in its current global form simply would not be possible without the low-cost, instantaneous communication and the rich research possibilities of the Net. Seattle was also a turning point in this use of the Internet and other ‘new media’ as organizing and educational tools. Not only was the massive event largely organized via the World Wide Web, but the Independent Media Centers (http://www.indy.media.com) that emerged during the Battle of Seattle have grown into a wide web of independent news centers around the world offering alternative views from those of what activists refer to as the ‘corporate media.’
Globalization and the 21st-century US peace movement
191
The Net provides groups with access to hundreds of corporate and governmental documents vital to understanding and strategizing against neoliberal policy, and it is the only mass medium currently available without a built-in bias towards the status quo. Indeed, given the anti-corporate ethic among many computing subcultures, it may even have something of a bias against hegemony (though that is certainly not an inherently progressive bias, since terrorists and white supremacists have proved as adept as peace activists in using the new media). Moreover, few activists forget that, as Iain A. Boal puts it, the new media’s ‘liberatory functioning as a tool for “organizing from below” flourishes in the shade of its dominant use as essential support for the global transmission of administrative, military and commercial intelligence, and the enhanced surveillance of labor’ (Yuen, Burton Rose, and Katsiaficas, 2001, pp. 379–80). Most global justice activists are not among the naive utopian technological determinists who see the Internet as the world’s savior. Rather, they see it as a site of struggle where with mobility, flexibility, imagination, and daring they may actually have some tactical advantages over their often stodgy, bureaucracy-bound opponents. ‘Hactivists,’ ‘camcorder commandos,’ ‘data dancers,’ ‘code warriors,’ ‘digital deviants’—a new media culture of resistance has become a vital part of the movement.3
V REFORMISM(S) AND RADICALISM(S): PROTESTS AND BEYOND After Seattle, large-scale transnational movement actions continued apace in the early 21st century, in Washington, DC (April 16, 2000), Prague (September 26, 2000), Quebec City (April 20, 2001), and Genoa (July 18–22, 2001), among others, all involving thousands of protesters. Like the Seattle action, these were often met by police violence, but initially this only further emboldened the movement. Testimony to the effectiveness of this series of actions has come from some unexpected sources, including the frank assessment of former World Bank economist and Nobel prizewinner for economics, Joseph Stiglitz (2003, p. 9): ‘[I]t is the trade unionists, students, environmentalists—ordinary citizens—marching in the streets of Prague, Seattle, Washington, and Genoa who have put the need for reform on the agenda of the developed world.’ Stiglitz makes clear that, whatever they may say publicly, leaders of the major world financial and trade organizations have been deeply shaken by the protests. While these dramatic confrontations at ‘counter-summits’ continue to get the most press coverage (and play a significant role), most activists most
192
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
of the time work in their local corners of the world on the particular issues most immediately relevant to them—farmers on genetically engineered crops, workers on labor rights, environmentalists on toxic waste, students on the sweatshops that produce their college T-shirts, Palestinians, Israelis, and Iraqis on peace in their region, and so on. Most agree that the powerful large-scale demonstrations are important in invigorating the movement, and in giving activists worldwide a sense that they are part of something larger. But those actions are only the tip of the movement iceberg. For example, Seattle’s ‘festival of resistance,’ as activists dubbed it, was much broader than its most well-known facet, the blockade of ministerial delegates. Events in Seattle began officially several days before the blockade, marked by prayers, meditation, and education (sides of the action not much covered by the ‘corporate’ media). Teach-ins on dozens of aspects of globalization and social justice sponsored by groups like the International Forum on Globalization, Global Exchange, Indigenous Environmental Network, and Public Citizen took place at venues all week long. Local Seattle activists had created an interest in globalization issues in the city through a series of lectures, debates, workshops and public forums in the weeks and months preceding the ministerial meeting. Thus, local interest added to that of thousands of protesters made every event virtually a sold-out, standing room only affair. In contrast to New York Times critic Thomas Friedman’s characterization of the protesters as know-nothing ‘flat earthers,’ this was a very well-informed collection of people hungry for further knowledge. Key movement intellectuals like Vandana Shiva and Warren Bello played the role of translating immensely complicated issues of global political economy into terms average citizens could grasp and debate. The various movement constituencies are organized into two main components—non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and direct actionoriented movement groups. NGOs, as organizations originally growing out of the UN bureaucracy, are generally seen as tamer agents of change than direct action groups. But the name encompasses an extremely wide variety ideologically and in terms of focus, from environmental to human rights to women’s rights to health advocacy and so on. Some NGOs are more service-oriented, others lobby to affect policy, and still others are virtually indistinguishable from direct action social movement groups in their resistance efforts. Direct actionists tend to see NGOs as more moderate and formal, if not bureaucratic, and NGOs tend to see direct actionists as disorganized and overly confrontational, but the borders between the two types of organizing are often porous. In the general flow of the movement against corporate capitalist globalization, many NGOs form a mediating space between formal governments and the disruptive power of direct actionists. In an overall strategy, the two
Globalization and the 21st-century US peace movement
193
sectors often benefit each other, with NGOs proposing much-needed temporary reforms while the direct actionists push for deeper transformations. While this mutual benefit is not often felt or acknowledged by partisans of the respective modes of political activity, broad coalitions of these forces continue to work together on small- and large-scale endeavors, including anti-war efforts.
VI FROM SHADOWING TO SUBSTANCE: THE FORUM PROCESS The creation of the World Social Forum (WSF) was a key development in the global justice movement. The World Social Forum first met in 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, partly as a symbolic challenge to the World Economic Forum (WEF) of corporate leaders and trade ministers. In 2002, the second WSF meeting in Porto Alegre drew some 12 274 delegates representing close to 5000 civil society organizations and movements, plus another 50 000 participant-observers. State political parties and military units—the two mainstays of the bureaucratic, nationalistic, and militaristic forces the forum seeks to overturn—are excluded from participation in the forums. The subsequent yearly world forums (most recently in Nairobi, Kenya in January 2007), supplemented by many regional ones, have similarly expanded in numbers of participants (including a record 155 000 participants from 110 countries at the Mumbai WSF). Mere ‘shadowing’ of the WEF has been replaced by a proactive focus on the movement’s alternative plans. Similarly, the currently favored descriptors, ‘the movement for global justice,’ or ‘the movement for alternative globalization,’ suggest a move from the defensive to the offensive, from reacting to globalization to designing and building alternatives. The global justice summits are formed like the movement itself as a network of networks, not a hierarchical organization. The WSF does not itself take positions (beyond its charter), but serves rather as a place for civil society groups to meet on an annual basis to educate, assess, strategize, network, and plan. The WSF charter reads in part: The alternatives proposed at the World Social Forum stand in opposition to a process of globalization commanded by the large multinational corporations and by the governments and international institutions at the service of those corporations’ interests, with the complicity of national governments. They are designed to ensure that globalization in solidarity will prevail as a new stage in world history. This will respect universal human rights, and those of all citizens—men and women—of all nations and the environment and will rest on democratic international systems and institutions at the service of social justice, equality and the sovereignty of peoples.4
194
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
Within these broad principles, there is a wide array of ideological positions, from anarchism to Zapatismo. Ideological certainty is largely anathema to the movement, both because of a predominant spirit of experimentalism, and because of a commitment to respect local conditions. The sheer complexity of ethnicities, positions, ideas, makes it unlikely that any one faction could dominate, though sectarian efforts to do so will no doubt continue. The initial choice of Porto Alegre, site of a regionalist and localist challenge to Brazilian central state power, represents a continuing commitment to a diversity of solutions focused on particularities, even as it builds global networks. A variety of alternative economic and political systems have been suggested that can be hinted at by terms like bioregional social democracy, radically pluralist democracy, participatory democracy, economic democracy, decentralist socialism, regional egalitarian capitalism, and social anarchism. Some speak of ‘delinking’ from the global capitalist system into national or regional economies, others of recreating global capitalism in less monomaniacally profit-centered forms, and still others of various combinations of economic forms growing from communal farms to international fair trade networks. Many of the groups participating are directly involved in creating alternative economic networks, both for practical reasons and as models for alternative systems.
VII NON-VIOLENCE, TERRORISM, AND THE IMPACT OF 9/11 ON THE MOVEMENT For at least 30 years, non-violent social movements have debated the question of whether or not property destruction constitutes violence, and that debate has continued with the global justice movement. At times, as in Seattle, great tension arose between ‘Black Bloc’ members who argued that strategically targeted ‘vandalism’ or ‘revolutionary destruction’ undercuts the corporate equation of property and people, and those who argue on principle that such tactics are outside the tradition of respectful nonviolent civil disobedience, or that regardless of the principle at stake such actions trash the image of the movement and undermine its credibility with the wider populace. At times, such as the action in Prague in 2000, a rapprochement was reached in which three separate contingents with differing tactics marched on the meeting from different directions—a Yellow group committed to traditional non-violence, a Pink/Silver contingent advancing through ‘tactical frivolity’ (costumes, street theatre, dance etc.) and a Blue force seeking to engage police in low-level ‘combat.’ The context of these debates changed drastically, however, particularly in the United States, after the attack on September 11, 2001. Movement
Globalization and the 21st-century US peace movement
195
journalist L.A. Kaufman, writing only days after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, put into words what many activists were already feeling: ‘everything has changed,’ as two key icons of corporate world trade and US military power were quickly transformed into symbols of innocent victimhood. Kaufman (2000) wrote: [T]he September 11 attacks definitively interrupted the unfolding logic of the movements for global justice. The IMF/World Bank protests in D.C. were going to be simultaneously broader, more diverse, and more intense than any demonstrations in recent U.S. history. The AFL-CIO was pouring unprecedented resources into the events, mobilizing its membership on a massive scale, and faith-based and non-governmental organizations were activating thousands of people who had never come to a globalization protest before . . . Our movements’ vision of global justice is needed now more than ever; we will simply need to take great care in presenting that vision in a way people can hear.
It is hard to imagine two groups more different than the Al Qaeda terrorists and the anti-globalization activists, but a conservative US administration quickly pushed through Congress a ‘patriot act’ so sweeping that it seemed to turn all dissent into a pretext for the terrorist label. A particularly brutal suppression of demonstrators in Genoa, Italy in the summer of 2001, including at least three deaths and hundreds of injuries, had already put the European branch of the movement into a reassessment phase when 9/11 shocked the world. In February of 2002, the 60 000 thousand activists from around the world who attended the second World Social Forum in Porto Alegre reaffirmed the movement’s commitment to nonviolence. Soon thereafter, in March of 2002, close to 2 million people protested in Rome over labor issues, and in Barcelona 500 000 protested an international trade meeting, both without incident. In Barcelona the twoday festival involving more than 25 decentralized actions playfully avoided all confrontations with police. A new vision seemed to be solidifying—a spirit uncompromisingly strong and imaginative enough to draw media attention, but relying on the weapon of serious humor rather than rocks to disarm authorities. This tactical reconsideration partly forced upon the movement by 9/11 allows the moderate, policy-oriented branch and the direct actionists to be in closer contact, a particularly important factor in keeping anti-war elements allied with the peace and justice forces. The other new situation emerging out of the 9/11 events was a resurgence of nationalism, particularly in the United States. While analysts have glibly talked of the decline or death of the nation-state, many nation-states in recent years have in fact seen a growth in nationalism, either ethnically based (sometimes with the help of ‘cleansing’) or, as in the US case, driven by a sense of a common enemy. Any movement speaking of the global, even
196
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
if mostly in opposition, must deal seriously with neo-nationalist sentiments heightened by a ‘global’ war on terrorism not notably respectful of the boundaries of other nations.
VIII
WARS AND PEACES
Despite the complexities offered by the post-9/11 situation domestically and around the world, the movement for global justice continued to grow in the early years of the 21st century, taking with it the legacy of a halfcentury of extraordinary social movement action on behalf of economic, social, and environmental justice. The US branch of the movement gradually returned to life after 9/11; between 75 000 and 200 000 (estimates ranged widely, as always) protested peacefully in April 2002 in Washington, DC against the IMF, and World Bank. Corporate scandals in the United States around Enron, WorldCom, and a host of other companies seemed to confirm what protesters had been saying about the hypocrisies of neoliberal free trade. Though it seemed unlikely that ‘corporate terrorism’ would be added to the list of targets in the ‘war on terror,’ it also seemed clear that the latter could not fully deflect attention from the former. Alongside movement growth, however, came new forms of US militarism in the guise of wars on terror, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The global justice movement was quick to respond to each of these ‘wars,’ and became the backbone of resistance to them in the United States. The extensive network provided by the global justice movement, along with more specific anti-war discourses and networks arising from earlier opposition to Desert Storm, are the main reasons for the unprecedented fact that a very large anti-war movement grew up in the United States and around the world prior to actual combat. At the World Social Forum, in Mumbai, India in January 2004, a subgroup held a ‘General Assembly of the Global Anti-war Movement.’ As the organizational site that most fully legitimates a claim to a single global peace and justice movement, the formation of a separate anti-war assembly suggests that anti-war work is necessary but partial. As activists embedded in a larger structure, these anti-war workers are among those most likely to bring to light the transnational intricacies of struggle in which the evolving movement(s) in the United States will play their particular role. The movement for global justice has the potential to become a rich alternative to the clash of fundamentalisms between the evangelical crusaders in the White House and the Islamic extremists whose cause they have done so much to foment. The US war on Iraq generated the largest anti-war movement in the history of the world. On February 15, 2003, to cite one example, millions
Globalization and the 21st-century US peace movement
197
of people (estimates range from 10 to 30 million) in 600 cities in more than 60 countries around the globe demonstrated against the then impending war. This, the largest ‘focus group’ (as G.W. Bush dismissively called it) ever assembled, rested to a great extent on the cyber- and face-to-face networks forged by the movement(s) for global justice. The New York Times went so far as to declare the global peace and justice movement the world’s ‘second superpower’ (Tyler, 2003) the one force with the people power potential to contest US hegemony. There was initially some concern that an anti-war movement would distract from larger alternative globalization movement goals (see Cattan, 2001), but calls for resistance to the emerging war came quickly from the European Forum, and soon thereafter the World Social Forum. While stopping the war before it started proved impossible in the face of a courtappointed US president contemptuous of the views of anyone beyond his small circle and willing to falsify intelligence data, the sometimes tense coalescence of the anti-war and global peace movement created a strong dynamic that has profoundly reshaped the US electoral and cultural landscape.5 All of the major organizations opposing the war from within the United States are networks of groups in the style of the alternative globalization movement. One of the two key coalitions active in the United States, United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), bears in its very name (and, more substantively, in its constituent groups) the mark of the globalization movement, and the second major coalition, ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), is likewise very connected to the networks formed in the global justice movement context.6 An imaginative feminist opposition to the war has been carried out by the group calling itself CODEPINK (in mocking reference to the color-coded fear-mongering of the Homeland Security Office).7 The UFPJ mission statement is typical as it echoes the link between peace and justice: We come together to turn the tide, to overwhelm war with peace, and oppression with justice. We hold that sovereign nations have the right to determine their own future, free from the threat of ‘pre-emptive attacks’ and ‘regime change,’ military occupation, and outside control of their economic resources. We call for new foreign and domestic policies based on the peaceful resolution of disputes amongst states; respect for national sovereignty, international law, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the defense and extension of basic democratic freedoms to all; social and economic justice; and the use of public spending to meet human and environmental needs.
A third coalition, Not in Our Name, expresses a similar position thus: The Not in Our Name Project is a national network of individuals and organizations committed to standing with the people of the world. As the Not in Our
198
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
Name Pledge of Resistance states, ‘we believe that as people living in the United States it is our responsibility to resist the injustices done by our government, in our names.’ Our mission is to build, strengthen and expand resistance to stop the U.S. government’s entire course of war and repression being waged in the name of ‘fighting terrorism.’8
The group names war, suppression of immigrants, and shrinking of civil liberties under the PATRIOT Act as its three prime targets. More moderate, somewhat more narrowly focused ‘anti-war’ coalitions such as Win Without War, backed strongly by Internet powerhouse MoveOn.org, emerged as well. But they too offered a broader agenda than simply opposing this particular war. Indeed, a survey of major movement groups makes crystal clear that the majority of US activists working against the Iraq War and occupation, understand that ‘positive peace’ requires the presence of substantial economic and social change, domestically and internationally. The initial spectrum of organized opposition predictably ranged from far left to liberal. Within two years of the start of the occupation, mainstream organizations like the National Council of Churches officially announced opposition. The movement remained self-consciously a deeply egalitarian, networked coalition, eschewing personalized leadership. The entrance of Cindy Sheehan, an ‘average homemaker’ whose son had been killed in Iraq, onto the anti-war stage in 2005 gave the movement a human face, a recognizable emblem. While certainly not a leader in the conventional sense, Sheehan’s willingness to stand up and say directly to Bush that he was wrong, had lied, and should immediately end the ‘senseless war,’ encouraged many other ordinary Americans and heretofore cautious politicians to follow her lead. Majority opinion in the United States had turned against the war by the spring or winter of 2004 (depending on the poll), and the numbers opposed to the war grew steadily thereafter. By July 2007, 70 percent of Americans opposed the war, an exact reversal of the 70 percent who supported it initially (in contrast to the 80 percent of Japanese citizens who expressed initial opposition in 2003, a percentage fairly typical worldwide).9 By summer 2007, the majority of US citizens also agreed to the more strenuous and specific position that it was time for withdrawal of US forces. These changing attitudes certainly cannot be credited to the anti-war movement alone (mounting casualty figures, for one thing, are always a factor), but the peace movement created a constituency and context that led to greater and greater scrutiny of the war’s conduct and rationale, and emboldened mainstream politicians to express dissent. The most obvious result of this process was the victory of the Democratic Party in mid-term elections in 2006, and the anti-war positions articulated by all Democratic and many
Globalization and the 21st-century US peace movement
199
Republican candidates for the US presidency in 2008. As has been the case in previous anti-war movements such as the one that opposed the US war in Vietnam, the ‘mainstreaming’ of war opposition has tended to narrow focus toward short-term policy questions. Against this narrowing, the major peace and justice coalitions continue to attempt to educate the US public about the larger global impact of American economic, political, and cultural power. The movement for global justice and peace has a strong foothold in the United States, but it has much work to do there to expand the historic ethnocentric myopia of the American populace. The failed US war in Iraq has provided an opening for a broader discussion of America’s role in obstructing or furthering peace, democracy, and social justice, at home and abroad. The chastening impact of George W. Bush’s foreign policy disasters can result in several possible reactions: a new ‘isolationism,’ a change of strategy but not goals, or a fundamental rethinking of the US role in global affairs. The only force that could bring about the third option is a widespread, grassroots peace and justice movement alert to its US context, but deeply networked to allied forces around the globe.
NOTES 1. See Reed (2005). The book’s accompanying website includes an annotated bibliography and a set of links on the movement for global justice, see http://www.upress.umn.edu/ artofprotest/default.html 2. In the wake of the ‘police riot’ unleashed in Seattle, the city government has had to pay several hundred thousand dollars in damages to protesters. 3. Various perspectives on the developing use of the Internet in transnational grassroots organizing can be found in Ribiero (1998), Cleaver (1998), and in ‘Social Justice Movements and the Internet,’ (2001). 4. World Social Forum charter: http://www.wsf2008.net 5. A careful analysis of polling data by Steven Kull, Clay Ramsay, and Evan Lewis reveals a close correlation between support for the war and ‘false beliefs’ about the war’s rationale as promulgated by the Bush administration. See, ‘Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War’ (2003–2004). 6. To get a sense of the positions of these some key networks, visit their respective websites: United for Peace and Justice: http://www.unitedforpeace.org/. ANSWER: http:// answer.pephost.org/site. 7. See CODEPINK at: http://www.codepink4peace.org/. 8. Not in Our Name: http://www.notinourname.net. 9. Polls are of course subject to great variability depending upon the exact wording of questions and numerous other factors. To get a longitudinal sense of US opinion on the war, visit: http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm. To track Japanese opinion on the war, see http://www.glocom.org/special_topics/social_trends/20030224_trends_s 28/.
200
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
REFERENCES Brecher, J., T. Costello, and B. Smith (2000), Globalization From Below: The Power of Solidarity, Boston, MA: South End Press, p. x. Castells, M. (1999), The Information Age, 3 Vols, Oxford: Blackwell. Cattan, N. (2001), ‘Anti-globalization movement split on war,’ Forward, October 12: 6. Cleaver, H. (1998), ‘The Zapatista effect: the Internet and the rise of alternative political fabric,’ Journal of International Affairs, 51(2): 621–40. Kauffman, L.A. (2001), ‘All has changed,’ Free Radical, 19, September 17. Klein, N. (2000), ‘The vision thing,’ Nation, July 10, http://www.thenation.com/doc/ 20000710/klein. Accessed January 28, 2008. ‘Misperceptions, the media, and the Iraq War’ (2003–2004), Political Science Quarterly, 188(4): 569–98, http://www.psqonline.org/cgi-bin/99_article.cgibyear =2003&bmonth=winter&a=02free&format=view. Accessed 28 January, 2008. Prokosch, M. and L. Raymond (eds) (2002), The Global Activist’s Manual: Local Ways to Change the World, New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, p. 1. Reed, T.V. (2005), The Art of Protest: From the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Ribiero, G.L. (1998), ‘Cybercultural Politics: Political Activism in a Transnational World,’ in S. Alvarez, E. Dagnino, and A. Escobar (eds), Culture of Politics, Politics of Culture, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 325–52. ‘Social Justice Movements and the Internet’ (2001), special issue of Peace Review, 13(3). Stiglitz, J.E. (2003), Globalization and its Discontents, New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Sturgeon, N. (1995), ‘Theorizing Movements: Direct Action and Direct Theory,’ in M. Darnovsky, B. Epstein, and R. Flacks (eds) Cultural Politics and Social Movements, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Tyler, P. (2003), New York Times, February 17. Yuen, E., D. Burton Rose, and G. Katsiaficas (eds) (2001), The Battle of Seattle: The New Challenge to Capitalist Globalization, New York: Soft Skull Press, pp. 379–80.
12. A peaceful superpower: the movement against war in Iraq David Cortright I
INTRODUCTION
On February 15, 2003 in hundreds of cities across the world an estimated 10 million people demonstrated against war on Iraq. It was the largest single day of antiwar protest in human history. More than a million people jammed the center of London, and huge throngs marched in Rome, Barcelona, Berlin, Madrid, Paris, Sydney, and hundreds of other cities. An estimated 400 000 braved bitter cold in New York, and tens of thousands demonstrated in San Francisco.1 The people of the globe spoke out as never before in one unified voice against the planned invasion of Iraq. ‘The world says no to war,’ was the slogan and the reality. The February 15 demonstrations were the high point of a vast and unprecedented mobilization of public opposition to war. The Iraq campaign ‘was the largest transnational antiwar movement that has ever taken place,’ according to social movement scholar Barbara Epstein (2003). In the course of just a few months, the movement in the United States reached levels of mobilization that, during the Vietnam era, took years to develop. The Iraq movement was more international in character than any previous antiwar campaign, as protests were coordinated throughout the world and activists understood themselves to be part of a truly global struggle (ibid.). The movement represented a convergence of antiwar and global justice efforts in a common campaign against military-corporate domination (LeVine, 2003). It was an expression of what scholar Stephen Gill (2003, p. 218) has called ‘new . . . forms of global political agency.’ The movement emerged from traditional peace and justice networks and relied extensively on the knowledge and resources of organizations and individuals with previous experience in antiwar action. The roots of the Iraq antiwar movement reached back to the struggle against the first Gulf War, and even further to the nuclear freeze campaign, the Central America solidarity movement, the anti-apartheid struggle, and the Vietnam antiwar movement. 201
202
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
I was an active participant in the Iraq antiwar movement, and in many previous peace and justice campaigns. I write as an engaged activist, one who was intimately involved in many of the activities described here. Mine is not a detached, ivory tower stance. I strive to uphold rigorous scholarly standards, and document the facts presented, but I bring a perspective. I believe in history from the bottom up, and have participated in movements that attempted to shape history in that way. When I was drafted for the Vietnam War I joined the GI peace movement, organizing petitions and protests while on active duty, and eventually filing a federal lawsuit against the army. I later wrote about that experience in Soldiers in Revolt ([1975] 2006). Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s I was executive director of SANE, the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, and was deeply involved in the nuclear weapons freeze campaign, the Central America solidarity movement, and efforts to block the MX missile program and halt nuclear testing. I wrote about that experience in Peace Works (1993). When the Bush administration threatened war against Iraq, I connected with old and new colleagues to attend the founding meeting of United for Peace and Justice and helped create the Win Without War coalition. I also worked with my partners at the Fourth Freedom Forum and the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame to produce a series of policy reports rebutting the case for war and presenting alternative options for countering Saddam Hussein.2 For months, as the build-up to war intensified, I was constantly engaged in coordinating coalitions, planning actions, raising money, writing articles, publishing reports, participating in protests, and speaking to the media. Millions of others were similarly immersed in continuous antiwar activity. This is our story, offered as both testament to history and assessment of the movement’s impact and relevance. The Iraq antiwar movement involved religious communities, trade unions, students, women’s organizations, environmentalists, academics, business executives, Hollywood artists, musicians, and many more. The movement effectively was built largely through the Internet, which served as the primary tool for developing and disseminating strategies and actions, and which made it possible to mobilize huge numbers of people on short notice with limited resources. The movement effectively utilized the mass media to communicate its message. The war and the international opposition to it were dominant news stories throughout the world for months, and antiwar activists found themselves in the unaccustomed position of being the center of media attention. For the first time in history, observed writer Rebecca Solnit (2003), the peace movement was portrayed in the media as ‘diverse, legitimate and representative,’ which was a ‘watershed victory’ for the movement’s representation and long-term prospects.
The movement against war in Iraq
203
The Iraq antiwar movement was relatively free of sectarian acrimony among left factions. Differences existed, to be sure, as several coalitions emerged to reflect varying political perspectives and organizing strategies, but the sharp political divisions that split the Vietnam antiwar movement did not appear. The movement developed and peaked in a very short period of time, about six months, which provided little opportunity for ideological discussion and debate. It was a ‘global movement without leaders,’ Solnit wrote (ibid.). Many brilliant spokespersons and organizers emerged, to be sure, but millions of people stepped forward on their own to oppose the war in countless creative ways. Activists shared a common sense of urgency in attempting to prevent the invasion. Most also shared a common analysis of the Iraq War as a dangerous manifestation of US militarism. Defenders of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy talked openly of empire, which helped antiwar critics see the war as imperialist—as a US effort to gain geopolitical control over vital Iraqi oil supplies, and as part of a neoconservative and ‘Likudnik’ agenda to make the region safe for US and Israeli political-military interests. The stark political realities of this aggressive policy brought together a wide range of progressive constituencies in a shared movement to resist war. The administration’s radical agenda also alarmed many mainstream Americans, who found themselves for the first time listening to and agreeing with the concerns of the peace movement. A few days after the February 15 demonstrations, New York Times reporter, Patrick Tyler, conferred ‘superpower’ status on the antiwar movement. The huge antiwar demonstrations were indications, wrote Tyler, of ‘two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion’ (2003, p. A1).’ The White House faced a ‘tenacious new adversary,’ which was generating massive opposition to the administration’s war policy and had left the world’s greatest military power virtually alone in the international community. Antiwar commentators quickly adopted the phrase and proclaimed their movement ‘the other superpower.’ Author Jonathan Schell (2003) wrote in The Nation of the movement’s ‘immense power’ in winning the hearts and wills of the majority of the world’s people. Even UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan used the phrase in referring to antiwar opinion (Nunberg, 2003). A new form of global social movement had emerged, an unprecedented expression of collective consciousness and action bound together through the Internet (Moore, 2003). How did this ‘superpower’ exert its influence? What, if any, impact did the antiwar movement have on the policies of the Bush administration? This chapter analyzes the emergence of the Iraq antiwar movement and traces the extraordinary scale of its development, concentrating on the months prior to and immediately after the beginning of war in March 2003.
204
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
I provide an overview of different elements of the movement, concentrating on the Win Without War coalition, in which I was most actively involved. I examine the activities of the United for Peace and Justice coalition, consider the role of non-violent civil disobedience, and discuss the reaction to war in the religious community, among women and people of color, in the labor movement, and in the military. I give special attention to two key dimensions of the movement—the role of Internet-based organizing, and the movement’s strategies for framing and delivering its message. I conclude with some reflections on the movement’s overall impact.
II
A WAR PREDETERMINED
The Iraq antiwar movement had enormous influence in shaping strong majorities of public opinion against war. Yet the movement was unable to achieve its overriding objective of preventing the attack on Iraq. The unavoidable fact, as Schell (2003) poignantly observed, was that ‘the candles in windows did not stop the cruise missiles.’ The antiwar campaign may have delayed the onset of war, as the Bush administration was forced to spend frustrating months seeking an elusive diplomatic consensus, but even that small success is debatable. If the movement bought time for diplomacy, it was only a matter of months at best. This meager result reflected not the weakness of the movement, but the failures of democracy in the United States and the United Kingdom, where majorities of people opposed a war fought without UN support or international allies. It also reflected the Bush administration’s determination to overthrow the government of Saddam Hussein regardless of public opinion. The administration simply disregarded the rising chorus of opposition in the United States and around the world. In retrospect it seems that no movement, however massive or powerful, could have succeeded in dissuading the president and his advisers from their obsession with armed regime change in Iraq. Neoconservatives in Washington had argued for war against Iraq throughout the 1990s. In the last days of the first Bush administration, Paul Wolfowitz, then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, circulated a classified draft of a defense guidance document asserting that the United States must be ‘postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated.’3 In the document, Wolfowitz outlined plans for military intervention in Iraq as an action necessary to assure ‘access to vital raw material, primarily Persian Gulf oil’ (Cirincione, 2003). When excerpts of the draft document were published in the New York Times in March 1992, it embarrassed the administration as being too hawkish and was shelved.4 Support for war against Iraq did not die, however, as military hardliners
The movement against war in Iraq
205
continued to urge the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and a more assertive US military strategy to reshape Iraq and the Middle East. An influential group known as the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) emerged in 1997 to give voice to these sentiments. It was led by William Kristol, publisher of the Weekly Standard, and included among its supporters Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and other future leaders of the Bush administration. In January 1998 the group sent a letter to President Clinton that urged ‘removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power’ (PNAC, 1998). Among the signers were Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and future Assistant Secretary of State, John Bolton. In September 2000 the group published Rebuilding America’s Defenses, a detailed plan for a new American strategy of global military dominance that presaged the Bush administration’s blueprint for military pre-emption released in September 2002. Wolfowitz, Cheney, and other Iraq hawks returned to power as part of the Bush– Cheney administration in 2001. The terror attacks later that year and the national numbing that followed created a climate where the neoconservatives could pursue their vision of pre-emptive unilateralism and the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Concrete discussion of war against Iraq began within hours of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Washington Post reporter, Bob Woodward, described in Bush at War (2002) how the president was transformed into a war leader by the tragedy of September 11, and almost immediately began to think of Iraq as a potential target of attack. ‘I believe Iraq was involved,’ Bush said a few days after the terrorist attacks. He decided against striking then, but told the Pentagon to get ready. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld needed no encouragement. Within hours of the attack he instructed aides to develop justifications for invading Iraq. CBS News quoted notes from an aide who participated in a Pentagon meeting the afternoon of September 11 in which Rumsfeld ordered his staff: ‘Best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit SH [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only UBL [Usama bin Laden]. Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not’ (CBS, 2002). Rumsfeld raised the question of attacking Iraq at a White House meeting of the National Security Council on September 12 (Woodward, 2002). PNAC sent a letter to the White House on September 20 asserting ‘even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the [September 11] attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power’ (PNAC, 2001). Preparations for the attack on Iraq began in earnest soon after the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Bush speechwriter, David Frum, recounted in his memoir that he was told to come up with a justification for war against Iraq for Bush’s State of the Union address in
206
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
2002 (Judis and Ackerman, 2003). An initial wave of articles about possible war in Iraq appeared at the end of 2001, and the public discussion intensified throughout 2002 as the Bush administration finalized its invasion plans. The first major rattling of the saber was Vice President Cheney’s August 2002 speech to the American Legion, which evoked the image of the Iraqi regime as an imminent menace requiring a military response. President Bush formally kicked off the public campaign for war with his September 2002 address at the United Nations, which came on the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks. The president implied a link between the terrorist threat and Saddam Hussein (despite the lack of verified evidence of an operational connection between the Baghdad government and Al Qaeda) and demanded that Iraq yield to UN disarmament. Although Saddam Hussein unexpectedly conceded to the demand for renewed inspections, and generally cooperated with the UN monitors when they reentered the country in December, the Bush administration pressed ahead with a steady drumbeat for war. The build-up of an invasion force accelerated in the final months of 2002, as war became increasingly inevitable. Premonitions Like the administration’s planning for war, the development of the antiwar movement began in the immediate aftermath of September 11. Alarmed by the president’s declaration of a ‘war on terror,’ and fearing that the metaphor of war would be turned into reality, peace and human rights activists began to call for a different kind of response to the terrorist attacks. An open-ended ‘war’ against terror was a formula for continuous military conflict, they warned. Instead of war they called for a ‘just and effective response,’ which became the name of a new website established by the Fourth Freedom Forum on behalf of a coalition of groups.5 Within days of the attacks, religious leaders began to circulate a statement appealing for ‘sober restraint’ and warning against indiscriminate retaliation that would cause more loss of innocent life. ‘Let us deny them [the terrorists] their victory by refusing to submit to a world created in their image,’ the declaration read. Initiated by Reverend Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners, and Reverend Bob Edgar, former congressman and general secretary of the National Council of Churches, the statement was eventually signed by more than 4000 religious leaders and was published in the New York Times on November 19, 2001. Religious and peace activists argued for a counterterrorism strategy based on cooperative law enforcement rather than unilateral military action. The terrorist attacks were a crime, they emphasized, not an act of war. The proper response was not military action, but a vigorous, multilateral police
The movement against war in Iraq
207
effort to apprehend the perpetrators and prevent future attacks. Activists also appealed for greater attention to the root causes of political extremism —not to excuse terrorism, but to understand and address the factors that motivate such violence. They called for greater efforts to heed the voice of the powerless and resolve the grievances of the oppressed. They proposed policies that could mitigate anti-American resentment and enhance global security: a reduced US military presence in the Arab and Muslim world, support for a just peace in the Middle East, and funding for equitable development and poverty reduction efforts. The peace movement advocated these and other approaches as it struggled to frame its message in the radically altered post-September 11 political environment. Many social justice activists feared that the government would use the September 11 tragedy not only as a pretext for war but also as an excuse to crack down on immigrants and people of color. In the San Francisco Bay area several veterans of racial justice campaigns decided to create a new publication, War Times, which they hoped would serve as a vehicle for outreach and consciousness-raising for a new kind of peace and justice movement. The groups decided to test the public response to their concept by producing a pilot issue in January 2002. Bob Wing, managing editor of the new paper, described what happened: We put the prospectus up on the Internet and within a week we had seventy thousand orders. We had decided to jump off a cliff and see if anyone would give us a parachute. The response was overwhelming. It blew it open for us. We gave the paper away free, but donations kept coming in to keep the presses running.6
The monthly distribution soon reached 130 000. From the outset War Times was published in English and Spanish. The paper focused not only on the build-up toward war but the increasing harassment and pressures faced by immigrants and racial minorities. The paper became an important organizing tool for broadening the antiwar movement. Wing became a key player in the leadership of United for Peace and Justice. On the day after September 11, Eli Pariser, a recent college graduate living near Boston, sent an e-mail message to a group of friends urging them to call for multilateral police action rather than war in response to the terrorist attacks (Packer, 2003). Friends forwarded his message to others, and it began to spread exponentially. In the vernacular of the Internet, it went viral. At the same time, a recent graduate of the University of Chicago, David Pickering, posted a similar message on a campus website. When Pariser saw it, he contacted Pickering, and the two joined forces on a new website, 9-11peace.org. Within a week, 120 000 people from 190 countries had signed their petition against war. By the first week of October more than half a million signed. Pariser and his colleagues had discovered
208
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
what a New York Times reporter later called ‘an organizing tool of dazzling power’ (ibid.). It was the beginning of Internet-based peace organizing on a mass scale. A few months later Pariser teamed up with Wes Boyd and Joan Blades, software entrepreneurs in California, who had created MoveOn in 1998 to stop the impeachment of Bill Clinton. With Pariser spearheading its international campaigns, MoveOn quickly emerged as a major organizational and financial power in the fledgling antiwar movement. The September 11 attacks had an enormous impact on the global justice movement. The struggle against corporate globalization had burst dramatically onto the political stage with the huge protests and urban lockdowns in Seattle in November 1999, followed by similar actions in Washington, Prague, Quebec, and Genoa. Another action had been planned for September 2001 in Washington, but was cancelled after the terrorist strikes. The social trauma that followed in the immediate aftermath of the attacks was not conducive to continued protests. For a time the global justice movement suffered from a loss of direction, and was unable to recapture its previous momentum. Ironically, the war drive of the Bush administration gave the movement a new sense of urgency and purpose. Thousands of activists in the United States and around the world began to see, as one activist leader put it, that ‘militarization was just the other arm of the corporate agenda.’7 Many suspected, as events would later prove, that a US takeover of Baghdad would lead to the privatization of Iraq’s economy and would open the door to corporate profiteering by politically connected US firms. Global justice activists began to pour their energy and creativity into the emerging antiwar movement. The response to the Bush administration’s militarized policies also included traditional street protests. Demonstrations and rallies are a natural social response to government policies that endanger or offend the public interest. They are an essential means of drawing attention to a movement’s grievances and demands. They help to build solidarity and commitment among activists. But they can also attract fringe groups, which may create divisiveness within the larger movement. This was a major dilemma during the Vietnam antiwar movement,8 and similar though less severe problems emerged during the Iraq campaign. The first group to organize national protests against the war build-up was ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), a coalition formed by the splinter group, Workers’ World Party. ANSWER called for a demonstration in Washington on September 29, 2001 to oppose the Bush administration’s war plans. The initial rally was relatively small, attracting about 10 000 demonstrators. ANSWER organized larger rallies in Washington on April 20 and October 26, 2002, and January 18, 2003. Other groups co-sponsored these subsequent rallies, but ANSWER usually controlled the program. Speakers at
The movement against war in Iraq
209
the rallies condemned the war in Afghanistan and plans for the invasion of Iraq, but they also supported a variety of other causes, from freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal to support for Palestinian rights. Many activists, myself included, attended the ANSWER rallies because of a desire to be counted in opposition to the Bush administration’s policies, but we were turned off by the coalition’s sectarianism. Veteran activist Todd Gitlin (2002) wrote a commentary for Mother Jones magazine in October 2002 decrying the ‘old left’ tenor of the antiwar movement to date, and calling for an ‘extensive, inclusive popular movement’ against the policies of the Bush administration. ‘We don’t like the Workers’ World Party,’ said an activist from the Pittsburgh-based Thomas Merton Center during the October 2002 rally, ‘but they’re the only game in town (Corn, 2002).’ Many of us wanted to see a new game, and we yearned for a more diverse, broadly based antiwar movement. On the day before the April 20 ANSWER-sponsored mobilization in Washington, two dozen representatives from a range of religious and peace groups met to discuss the threat of war. I helped to organize the meeting, and Susan Shaer, executive director of Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND), chaired the session. We discussed a number of possible action strategies but made no decisions and did not attempt to form a new coalition. Some activists later questioned why we had not been more decisive. If we had called for a new coalition then, perhaps the antiwar movement would have taken shape sooner, and we might have had a greater chance of actually stopping the war. At the time, however, it was difficult to predict when and if the war would begin. Many people still believed, or perhaps were trying to convince themselves, that the Bush administration was merely using threats and coercive diplomacy to pressure Saddam Hussein, that the White House didn’t really intend to invade Iraq. I was convinced of the contrary, that the administration meant business and was intent on war, but it was often hard to persuade others. The sense of urgency that would come later was not yet present. Congress Caves During an early antiwar strategy meeting, several people suggested that demanding a congressional vote might be a way of preventing or delaying the march toward war. The assumption, naive in retrospect, was that members of Congress would object to such an obviously unjustified attack. Be careful what you wish for, other activists cautioned. Don’t count on Congress to challenge the president’s war authority or stand in the way of military action. Congress might simply roll over and give the president whatever he wants. This pessimistic assessment was based on an accurate
210
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
reading of US history. Congress long ago abdicated its constitutional authority to declare war. For decades, legislators have either stepped aside or actively cheered as the executive branch employed US troops abroad and accumulated ever-greater authority to wage war. In 1964, Congress passed the infamous Gulf of Tonkin resolution, based on a non-existent attack against US naval forces, providing the president virtually unlimited authority to wage war in Indochina. Congress was particularly hawkish in its posture toward Iraq. In 1998, Congress approved the so-called Iraq Liberation Act, asserting that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove Saddam Hussein from office. That same year Congress urged the president to take ‘appropriate action . . . to bring Iraq into compliance’ with its UN obligations.9 As the White House launched its public campaign for war in August and September 2002, the administration initially claimed that congressional approval was not necessary for an invasion of Iraq. White House lawyers drafted a legal brief asserting that the president could go to war without any further endorsement from Congress or the United Nations (Pomper, 2002a). Congressional leaders objected to this interpretation. Republicans as well as Democrats expressed anxieties that Bush was leading the country to war without thinking through the implications or consulting allies. In early September, the White House yielded to these concerns and announced that it would seek congressional approval. This touched off an intensive period of political jockeying in which Democrats and some moderate Republicans attempted to place limits on the president’s war-making authority. Senators Joseph Biden (D-DE) and Richard Lugar (R-IN), leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduced legislation specifying that military force could be used only to disarm Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Their measure would have required the president to win the approval of the UN Security Council before using force, or issue a determination that the threat to security was so grave that he needed to act without UN authorization. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, proposed a measure that would have flatly prohibited military action without explicit Security Council approval. These and other efforts to limit the president’s authority were undermined when House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO), cut a deal with the White House in early October. The Bush–Gephardt compromise gave the president virtually unchecked authority to use military force, while offering the figleaf of further consultations with Congress and the requirement of a presidential determination that diplomacy was no longer working (Pomper, 2002b). Gephardt’s action undercut Democratic efforts to restrain the president’s war-making authority and handed the White House a major political victory. On October 10, Congress approved a joint resolution
The movement against war in Iraq
211
authorizing the president ‘to use the armed forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate . . . against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.’ The vote in the Senate was 77–23, and in the House 296–133 (VandeHei and Eilperin, 2002). Antiwar groups attempted to mobilize against the war resolution. MoveOn organized hundreds of antiwar meetings with members of Congress in local districts in August. The Friends Committee on National Legislation joined with Education for Peace in Iraq and other Washingtonbased groups to form an Iraq Working Group that lobbied members of Congress and coordinated grassroots constituency pressure. Members of Congress reported substantial voter unease about the prospect of war, and constituent messages reportedly ran four to one against the use of force.10 A major demonstration in Washington might have helped to pressure Congress, but the ANSWER-sponsored rally came on October 26, two weeks after the congressional vote. The inability of the antiwar movement to prevent the White House from winning congressional authorization was a major blow to the prospects of stopping the invasion or limiting the scope of military action. The movement was not yet sufficiently large or well organized to wield the level of political clout that would have been necessary to block congressional approval. As expected, most Republicans voted for the president’s war authorization, but so did many Democrats, much to the disappointment of antiwar activists. Even erstwhile liberals such as John Kerry of Massachusetts and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York voted for war. As their constituents were mobilizing for peace, these senators were scrambling for political cover. Kerry attempted to rationalize his vote by saying that it was not an explicit authorization for war but simply an endorsement of tough diplomacy. As a former leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War during the early 1970s, Kerry should have known better. Kerry’s prowar vote came back to haunt him when he entered the 2004 presidential campaign. Many liberal Democrats who otherwise might have supported him turned instead to Howard Dean, who had consistently opposed the war. The Democrats who voted for the war resolution in October fell victim to a trap set by White House political adviser Karl Rove. The White House strategy for the November 2002 mid-term elections was to focus on Iraq and the threat of terrorism, as a way of rallying voter support behind a wartime president, and taking advantage of higher Republican approval ratings on national security issues. For the White House, the war debate was a useful distraction from domestic economic issues and corporate malfeasance, where Republicans were politically vulnerable. Democrats hoped to get the war vote out of the way early in the campaign, so that the focus of public attention could swing back to Bush’s unpopular domestic policies.
212
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
100 80 60 40
Congressional Black Caucus Congressional Hispanic Caucus Congressional Women Entire Congress
20 0 Note: Vote percentages against the war by group are as follows: Congressional Black Caucus—90%; Congressional Hispanic Caucus—100%; Congressional women—54%; and the entire congress—29%. Research gathered from publicly available voting records and caucus membership rolls.
Figure 12.1 Congressional vote patterns (as a percentage of the represented group) October 2002 Iraq War resolution The White House easily trumped this losing strategy, and Republicans won control of the Senate in the mid-term elections. By standing aside on the vital issue of war, Democrats lost credibility and political standing. The vote on the congressional war resolution (see Figure 12.1) revealed important cleavages in American political life. White members of Congress from both parties voted overwhelmingly to endorse war. AfricanAmerican, Latino, and women legislators, on the other hand, voted against the use of military force. Among the 33 voting members of the Congressional Black Caucus, 30 voted against the resolution. Every one of the 16 members of the Hispanic Congressional Caucus who voted that day opposed the measure. Among the 70 female members of the Senate and House who participated in the vote, 38 decided against the resolution. These votes in Congress reflected the greater skepticism about war among Blacks, Latinos, and women in the general population.
III
UNITING FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
As the administration made its bellicose intentions clear in August and September 2002, the need for more effective antiwar leadership intensified. A growing number of activists began to call for a more broadly based national effort to oppose war in Iraq. In August I wrote an article for The Progressive magazine (2002, pp. 18–21), ‘Stop the war before it starts,’
The movement against war in Iraq
213
arguing for a mainstream movement that could ‘capture the patriotic wave’ and build broad public opposition to war. During the summer several experienced peace and justice activists began a series of discussions with the specific goal of forming a new coalition. One of the most important figures in this effort was Bill Fletcher, president of TransAfrica Forum. Fletcher was a veteran of 25 years in the labor movement and the former education director and assistant to the president of the AFL-CIO (America’s Union Movement). Fletcher worked with Van Gosse, former organizing director for Peace Action, to contact a range of peace and justice activists about the prospects for creating a unified antiwar coalition.11 Gradually an initial planning group came together to call for a public meeting. On October 25, 2002, the day before the ANSWERsponsored rally in Washington, representatives of more than 50 peace, religious, and social justice organizations gathered in Washington to address the threat of war. The meeting was co-chaired by Fletcher and Leslie Cagan, a veteran organizer widely respected throughout the peace movement (Hedges, 2003). The breadth of participation in the meeting reflected the wide recognition that an effective antiwar coalition was urgently needed. Cagan described the moment and the process: The Bush administration’s push toward war, and the growing opposition to it . . . led a number of people to feel that we should try to put together something that would have a broader reach, that would not just mobilize the most obvious layer of discontent, but would try to bring into play much broader forces. So people who knew each other from previous antiwar, anti-intervention, nuclear disarmament, and general foreign policy activism started talking to each other. An initial group of about ten to twelve people gathered in Washington in early October and agreed to organize a larger meeting on October 25.12
Participants in the larger meeting included traditional peace organizations that had led previous antiwar efforts (Peace Action, American Friends Service Committee, Women’s Action for New Directions, Sojourners, War Resisters League, Fellowship of Reconciliation); representatives of the new Internet-based groups (MoveOn and True Majority, an activist network founded by ice cream entrepreneur Ben Cohen); global justice groups such as Global Exchange; and major constituency organizations (National Organization for Women, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, and the Center for Community Change). The meeting lasted all day, as nearly every one of the approximately 90 participants took a turn at speaking and debating a wide range of issues and action strategies. At the end of the session, participants agreed to create a new antiwar coalition, taking its name, ‘United for Peace,’ from a website of the same name created by Global Exchange. Cagan and Fletcher were asked to chair the new
214
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
coalition, and an ad hoc committee was selected to work out the details of process and program that were left unresolved. The new coalition faced multiple challenges as it struggled to take shape: an imminent war threat, a lack of financial and organizational resources, and an unwieldy participatory process that complicated the task of deciding structure and strategy. One of the coalition’s early decisions was to change its name to United for Peace and Justice, which reflected a desire to link the cause of peace to the struggle for racial and economic justice. For the first two months the coalition operated without staff or office space. Cagan served as unpaid, indispensable coordinator, while participating groups—Global Exchange, Institute for Policy Studies, Peace Action, Democracy Rising, and others—contributed staff and resources (Gosse, 2003). Office space was finally secured in January, donated by 1199 Service Employees’ International Union, New York’s health care union. United for Peace and Justice was quintessentially a grassroots activist coalition, and its principal action strategy was to organize protest demonstrations. The coalition’s first action was a call for nationally coordinated local actions on December 10, Human Rights Day. More than 130 events took place that day all over the United States, generating substantial local and regional press coverage for the growing antiwar movement. At the University of Michigan, demonstrators created a symbolic graveyard at the main walkway through campus. In Providence, Rhode Island, 100 people staged a die-in at the downtown federal building. Demonstrations took place at federal buildings in Oakland and Sacramento. At the US mission to the United Nations in New York, more than 100 protesters were arrested—including Daniel Ellsberg, Ben Cohen, and Reverend Herbert Daughtry of the House of the Lord Church in Brooklyn. None of the protests were huge, but this first wave of coordinated local action represented an important beginning for the new antiwar coalition. The December 10 actions were a significant success, according to Cagan, and ‘spoke to the real breadth of opposition to what the Bush administration was doing.’13 As United for Peace and Justice discussed options for a national protest demonstration, it had to contend with ANSWER, which had already obtained permits and issued a call for a rally in Washington on January 18, 2003, the weekend of the Martin Luther King, Jr. national holiday. Rather than attempt to compete with the ANSWER rally in Washington, United for Peace and Justice called for demonstrations in New York on February 15 and in San Francisco on February 16. The February 15 date was selected to coincide with global antiwar protests proposed by activists at the November 2002 European Social Forum in Florence, Italy (LeVine, 2003). The call for a mass demonstration in New York in the middle
The movement against war in Iraq
215
of winter was risky. No one knew if the protest would be successful. Organizing for the rally did not even begin until the second week in January. The mobilizing effort combined traditional methods of activist recruitment with the innovative potential of the Internet. Hundreds of thousands of leaflets were distributed in New York and in nearby states, and announcements were sent via the Internet, as visits to the United for Peace and Justice website soon reached 2 million a day. The United for Peace and Justice website became a central bulletin board for the antiwar movement, offering action plans, contact information, news updates, and organizing tips. The outreach effort for February 15 benefited from decades of experience among veterans like Cagan and her team of volunteers, and drew energy from a new, younger activist movement that had emerged in response to globalization challenges and September 11 (Gosse, 2003). The gathering momentum of the planned rallies around the world added excitement and energy to the organizing effort in the US. In the end the public moment turned out to be exactly right, as popular alarm over the Bush administration’s war policies peaked in the United States and throughout the world, producing the historic mass demonstrations of February 15, 2003. United for Peace and Justice continued to organize protest actions until and after the war began. One of the biggest actions came in New York on March 22. The demonstration had been announced a couple of weeks before but came just as the war was beginning. The crowd that day rivaled the turnout on February 15. An estimated 300 000 people streamed onto Broadway north of 34th Street and marched down to Washington Square Park. At one point the crowd completely filled Broadway for the entire length of the march. It was an overwhelming turnout that stunned even the organizers. Cagan recalled thinking, ‘Where are all these people coming from? We’re not that good.’ For many New Yorkers, like herself, the demonstration was a reaction to 9/11, and the Bush administration’s manipulation of the city’s suffering. ‘For those of us who lived through 9/11, there was a sense that we never wanted to see that kind of horror visited on other people, whether by a small group of terrorists or by the state terrorism of a military invasion.’14 Win Without War The October 25, 2002 meeting in Washington that resulted in the formation of United for Peace and Justice also spurred the creation of the Win Without War coalition. Several of us who attended the larger meeting were impatient with the tedious process and lack of focus during the all-day session. We decided to meet for dinner that evening at a nearby Chinese restaurant. I had prepared a concept paper outlining the idea of
216
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
creating a more structured and focused committee of mainstream national organizations with a streamlined decision-making process. The others around the table—Alistair Millar of the Fourth Freedom Forum, Susan Shaer of WAND, Eli Pariser of MoveOn, Duane Peterson of True Majority, Melissa Daar of Working Assets—had been thinking similarly, and we agreed to begin working together to create such a committee. Our goal was to build a coalition that could attract major constituency organizations, not just traditional peace groups. We wanted a quick and efficient decision-making process. We believed that the political message of the activist movement should emphasize containing and disarming Saddam Hussein without war. We also felt the need for an effective public relations and communications campaign to reach mainstream audiences. Other groups that agreed to come together on the basis of these understandings included the National Council of Churches, Sojourners, the United Methodist Church, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Sierra Club, the National Organization for Women, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Forty organizations eventually joined the new national coalition, which was officially launched at a press conference in Washington on December 11. The development of the new coalition and of the antiwar movement benefited enormously from a planning and strategy retreat the weekend of November 15–17, 2002 at Blue Mountain Retreat Center in the Adirondacks mountains of upstate New York. The session was hosted by Harriet Barlow, director of the center, who played an indispensable role in organizing financial support for the emerging movement. It was during a creative brainstorming session at Blue Mountain that the name ‘Win Without War’ was selected. Participants agreed on a proactive and positive political message: the United States and the United Nations can disarm Iraq and enhance security through vigorous weapons inspections and continued containment. Many acknowledged the need for a sophisticated and largescale public relations effort to communicate a patriotic antiwar message. Participants also recognized the need for close cooperation between Win Without War and United for Peace and Justice. The two coalitions would have different emphases—grassroots demonstrations for United for Peace and Justice, media communications for Win Without War—but they would strive to share information and coordinate their efforts. In practice, the coordination between United for Peace and Justice and Win Without War was limited. Within United for Peace and Justice there were concerns about the development of Win Without War. Bill Fletcher noted that some activists were ‘perplexed’ by the creation of a parallel coalition.15 At the first Win Without War meeting in December, the need for the new group was questioned by Medea Benjamin, director of Global
The movement against war in Iraq
217
Exchange and a founder of United for Peace and Justice. Bob Edgar and others explained that the coalition would have a speedier and more efficient decision-making process, a greater emphasis on public relations, and a narrower political agenda focused on stopping the war. Some activist leaders, such as Peace Action director Kevin Martin, saw value in having two coalitions so that the movement could reach out both to the left and the center.16 The two coalitions maintained friendly relations, and there was some overlap in membership, with the American Friends Service Committee, Peace Action, Global Exchange, and other groups participating in both coalitions. A de facto division of labor developed, with United for Peace and Justice focusing on the mobilization of grassroots protest, while Win Without War emphasized Internet organizing and media communications. One of the first decisions of the new Win Without War coalition was to create an effective leadership structure. We chose two national cochairs, Susan Shaer and Bob Edgar. We hired Lynn Erskine as campaign coordinator and began the search for a national director/spokesperson. By this time public alarm about war was spreading rapidly, and money to support our cause was pouring in. We were in the rare and fortunate position of having the resources to hire a professional. One of the first persons we approached was former member of Congress, Tom Andrews. Andrews had represented the first district of Maine in the House of Representatives for six years and served as a member of the powerful House Armed Services Committee. He was known and respected as one of the most effective progressive leaders in Congress, with a stellar voting record on issues of peace and arms control. Prior to being elected to Congress, Andrews had been a community organizer and progressive leader in Maine for a variety of causes. Following his congressional service, Andrews created his own media advocacy firm, New Economy Communications, and worked on a range of human rights campaigns. As the threat of war loomed, Andrews served as an adviser for the antiwar media project created by Fenton Communications, where he shared office space. Andrews was thoroughly familiar with the issues and arguments against war, and he shared our shock and dismay at the prospect of the United States invading Iraq. He agreed to become national director and served as chief strategist and spokesperson for the coalition. His extensive political experience and creative organizing and speaking abilities were an enormous asset for the movement. He appeared on numerous national talk show programs and was respected by the national media as an articulate and reasoned opponent of war. More than any single person, Andrews became the national media voice of the antiwar movement.
218
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
Virtual organizing became the métier of the Win Without War coalition, as it mobilized the vast membership networks of its Internet-based groups and constituency organizations for coordinated lobbying and action campaigns. Its most ambitious effort was the ‘virtual march on Washington’ on February 26, 2003. Citizens all over the United States that day phoned, faxed, or e-mailed their elected representatives to oppose the march to war. Andrews conceived the plan as a way of harnessing the grassroots organizing power of MoveOn, True Majority, and other coalition member groups to apply focused political pressure on Congress. The point was not to back any specific congressional legislation but to demonstrate the organized clout of the antiwar movement, in the hope that legislators would redirect pressure for military restraint onto the White House. Win Without War mounted a huge outreach effort, mobilizing the networks of churches, women’s groups, campus committees, environmentalists, and a wide range of constituencies. All across Capitol Hill on February 26, the phones and fax machines were jammed. Members of Congress reported receiving hundreds and even thousands of messages by early afternoon that day. It was impossible to calculate the exact number of messages, but Andrews estimated that more than 1 million calls, faxes, and e-mail messages were sent. It was one of the largest one-day lobbying efforts in US political history. Coming just 11 days after the massive street demonstrations of February 15, the virtual march was further evidence of the vast scale of the movement against war. In the final weeks before the invasion, the Win Without War coalition maintained a frenetic pace of activity in a desperate attempt to prevent an increasingly certain military attack. Relying primarily on the rapidly expanding membership networks of MoveOn and True Majority, Win Without War launched an international petition to the UN Security Council urging rejection of a US and British draft resolution authorizing war. The response was overwhelming, the greatest of any MoveOn petition, and undoubtedly one of the most successful mass petitions in history. Within days, more than 1 million people signed the Security Council petition. It was delivered to UN representatives in New York at a Win Without War/MoveOn press conference on March 10. At the same time the coalition issued an international call for antiwar vigils the following weekend, March 15–16. Once again the response was overwhelming, as thousands of groups all over the world announced plans to hold candlelight and prayer vigils in their communities. More than 6000 vigils took place in more than 100 countries that weekend. Once again the world said no to war, this time in a prayerful plea at the last hour before the onset of military hostilities. It was the most diverse and widespread international wave of local peace action ever organized, another powerful indication of the unprecedented scale of the global movement against war.
The movement against war in Iraq
219
E-activism Much of the success of Win Without War and the antiwar movement in general can be ascribed to the powerful impact of Internet organizing, and the specific role of MoveOn and True Majority. The Internet emerged as a tool of mass political mobilization in the campaign against the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998 and in the broader global justice movement that emerged in 1999. It was not until the Iraq antiwar movement, however, that the full range of possibilities for utilizing the Internet for social change organizing became evident. The global justice movement used the Internet effectively as a means of communication, coordination, and education among decentralized networks of organizers around the world. To these functions antiwar activists added new dimensions of Internet mobilization: the development of organized ‘membership’ networks, the creation of ‘meeting tools’ to facilitate coordinated local action, and online fundraising. The result was an unprecedented capacity to raise consciousness and mobilize political action. MoveOn was the pioneer and leading force in this Internet revolution. It was the largest group within Win Without War and served as the backbone of the movement’s most extensive organizing and communication efforts. In August 2002, as antiwar actions were beginning to emerge, MoveOn organized hundreds of local meetings in which constituents urged their members of Congress to oppose war. Prior to the congressional vote in October, MoveOn circulated an antiwar petition to Congress signed by hundreds of thousands of people. After the vote, in a tribute to the 23 senators who stood against the resolution, MoveOn launched a campaign to ‘reward the heroes.’ It appealed for online contributions to antiwar members of Congress who faced difficult re-election campaigns, most importantly Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone. The response was overwhelming, and set a record for online fundraising. In a matter of days, MoveOn raised more than $2 million, including $700 000 for the Wellstone campaign. Tragically, the senator died in a plane crash a few days later. When the news of Wellstone’s death arrived during the United for Peace and Justice founding meeting in Washington on October 25, there was stunned shock. Several people wept openly, and the meeting was suspended for a time. The loss of Wellstone was a crushing blow to many antiwar activists. We took encouragement from his principled vote against war, and were hoping that his re-election could send a message to other Democrats that standing up for peace is good politics. MoveOn played a central role in building support for major antiwar actions, including the February 15 rallies, the virtual march on Washington, the petition to the UN Security Council, and the worldwide
220
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
antiwar vigils in March 2003. All of this action flowed from an organization with a tiny staff of seven people working from their homes—an organization with a powerful computer and sophisticated software system, but no office and none of the usual accoutrements of traditional membership groups (Goldberg, 2003). 17 In the six months leading up to the outbreak of war in March 2003, MoveOn’s online network, US and international, jumped from approximately 700 000 to nearly 2 million. Win Without War contributed to this membership growth by steering contacts to the organization and using MoveOn as a central repository for new names. Other electronically based networks also experienced extraordinary growth and activity during the antiwar movement. True Majority was founded by Ben Cohen in June 2002 as a progressive, Internet-based activist network. It grew rapidly as the antiwar movement emerged, reaching 100 000 members by the end of 2002 and 350 000 a year later.18 Working in close partnership with Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, True Majority specialized in producing bold, visually appealing newspaper ads and Internet messages that helped to attract new supporters. True Majority also developed a partnership with the National Council of Churches, helping to reach and mobilize religious leaders and faith-based activists throughout the country. Working Assets represented a different kind of electronic activist network. Founded in 1985 as a progressive telecommunications company offering long-distance, wireless, and credit card services, Working Assets developed a customer/subscriber base of several hundred thousand households. It donated a portion of its revenues to support organizations working for peace, human rights, equality, education, and the environment. Over the years it contributed $35 million for these causes. Working Assets also mobilized its customers to engage in progressive action through notices that were included with monthly subscriber bills. As the antiwar movement developed, Working Assets naturally became involved and developed web-based organizing tools. During the Iraq debate, Working Assets generated more than 430 000 online actions, letters, and calls in opposition to Bush administration policy. The organization also raised over $465 000 for antiwar efforts in the United States and humanitarian relief/democracy building activities in Iraq.19 When Internet organizing began, some skeptics questioned the value of a tool that kept activists glued to their computer screens. The very ease with which one could click and send off a message, sometimes to hundreds of recipients, seemed to cheapen the value of the effort. Lobbyists reported that the impact of an e-mail message as a form of political communication paled in comparison with that of other messages, such as a letter, phone call, or personal visit. MoveOn and the other Internet-based activist groups recognized these limitations early on and devised methods of mobilization
The movement against war in Iraq
221
that significantly broadened the impact of e-mail activism. One major innovation was the use of the Internet to organize coordinated local meetings. Activists were encouraged to get up from their computer screens and go out to meetings where they could connect with other activists in their communities. MoveOn developed a meeting tool that Eli Pariser termed ‘action in a box.’ Campaigns were user-friendly and were programmed so that respondents could be led easily through a series of prompts offering venues and functions for action. An e-mail message from MoveOn would contain the call to action, and by clicking the appropriate icons, the respondent could be connected to other activists and could volunteer for various tasks, ranging from attending a meeting and sending an e-mail to Congress, to more ambitious duties such as coordinating a meeting, speaking in public, and contacting the media. Working Assets developed a similar meeting tool, which gave subscribers options for participating in local activities. By segmenting lists according to location and interest, Internet organizers could use their membership bases to sponsor highly particularized forms of action. The success of the meetings at local congressional offices organized by MoveOn in August 2002 confirmed the effectiveness of the Internet as a tool for political lobbying. Equally important in translating Internet communications into political power was the development and use of online fundraising. Just as online marketing has become increasingly significant in the commercial economy, Internet-based fundraising has rapidly become a vital source of income for social movements, non-profit groups, and political campaigns. MoveOn’s first foray into antiwar fundraising, its ‘reward the heroes’ campaign of October 2002, paved the way for a series of subsequent appeals for donations to finance paid advertising and public relations efforts. In the months preceding the war MoveOn raised more than $1 million for newspaper and television ads and associated public relations activities, thus turning its vast Internet network into a crucial source of financial support for the antiwar movement. After the invasion, MoveOn became a fundraising powerhouse, fueling the initial presidential drive of Howard Dean and generating millions of dollars for advertising and public relations efforts to expose the Bush administration’s deceit in misleading the country into war.
IV
EPILOGUE
Social movement theory emphasizes the importance of resource mobilization as a means of exerting political influence. Movements are linked to social change organizations, which depend upon formal dues-paying membership networks. These structures provide a sustained and predictable
222
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
base of income and activism. Traditional membership networks also offer opportunities for participatory decision-making, with individual members or chapters playing a role in determining organizational priorities and selecting leaders. The Internet-based networks of MoveOn and True Majority are less formal and more loosely structured. There are no annual dues or membership requirements, no chapters or affiliates, indeed no fixed organizational structure at all. The ‘members’ of MoveOn participate only to the extent that they feel motivated to respond to particular e-mail action alerts. It is an approach, said writer Andrew Boyd (2003), that ‘embraces the permission-based culture of the Internet, and consumer culture itself.’ Pariser described this as a ‘postmodern organizing model’ (quoted in Boyd, 2003). This new form of organizing raises important questions about traditional models of social change. The classic theory, followed by Gandhi, King, and other great non-violent leaders, is that political impact depends on organizational strength. In his extensive organizing experience, Saul Alinsky found an indispensable connection between building organizations and achieving political results. Alinsky wrote in Rules for Radicals (1971): ‘power and organization are one and the same thing.’ In Strategic Nonviolent Conflict (1994), scholars Peter Ackerman and Christopher Kruegler emphasized the importance of ‘efficient, fighting organizations’ as crucial elements of successful social action. MoveOn and other Internetbased groups only partly follow this model. They provide networks for fundraising and coordinated action, but do not create long-term institutional structures. The memberships of these groups consist of atomized individuals rather than networks of organized affiliates. There are no formalized mechanisms for grassroots decision-making or structured feedback on group policies. In June 2003, MoveOn asked members to interview each other by phone to find out what issues and values were considered most important. Nearly 20 000 members participated, producing 10 000 pages of feedback. This type of informal polling can be helpful in determining overall priorities, but decisions on actual program are decided by the small MoveOn staff and then communicated to the network. Over time this approach may have a disempowering effect on the ‘members’ and lead to diminishing participation. If systems for sustaining involvement and interest are not developed, the huge networks generated during the antiwar movement may prove ephemeral. This does not mean necessarily that these groups should attempt to create formal institutions. The costs of building and maintaining an affiliate network and formal membership structure can be huge, and may drain resources from other priorities. Institutional sclerosis can sometimes drag down a large organization. A better model might be to preserve the spontaneity and flexibility of the Internet-based groups,
The movement against war in Iraq
223
while finding ways of using their vast membership and fundraising potential to strengthen existing membership organizations. During the antiwar movement, organizations with more traditional membership bases also developed e-mail networks and increased their fundraising potential. The religiously based organization, Sojourners, saw its newly created Sojo list expand from 20 000 in the summer of 2002 to more than 70 000 in March 2003. Peace Action, the Council for a Livable World, and other organizations also developed e-mail listservs and experienced tremendous growth in electronic participation. All of these groups used the Internet as a mechanism for political communication and fundraising. The use of electronic organizing and the overall growth of antiwar activism led to significant membership increases in most of the established peace organizations. WAND, Peace Action, and Physicians for Social Responsibility all reported 20 percent increases in membership during the antiwar campaign.20 The movement against war in Iraq thus became an opportunity for traditional peace groups to grow organizationally and financially.
NOTES 1.
2.
3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Http://www.unitedforpeace.org. In San Francisco, police and organizers estimated the crowd at 200 000, but a careful analysis by the San Francisco Chronicle, employing an innovative aerial observation method, put the crowd at approximately 65 000. See ‘Counting crowds using aerial photography to estimate the size of Sunday’s peace march in S.F.’ For newspaper accounts of the protests, see Chrisafis et al., (2003), Frankel (2003), Lowell (2003). See the following joint reports of the Fourth Freedom Forum and the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame: Sanctions, Inspections, and Containment: Viable Policy Options in Iraq, Policy Brief F3 (Goshen, IN: Fourth Freedom Forum, June 2002); Winning Without War: Sensible Security Options for Dealing With Iraq, Policy Brief F5 (Goshen, IN: Fourth Freedom Forum, October 2002); The Progress of UN Disarmament in Iraq: An Assessment Report, Policy Brief F7 (Goshen, IN: Fourth Freedom Forum, January 2003); Contested Case: Do the Facts Justify the Case for War in Iraq?, Policy Brief F8 (Goshen, IN: Fourth Freedom Forum, February 2003); Grading Iraqi Compliance, Policy Brief (Goshen, IN: Fourth Freedom Forum, March 2003); and Unproven: The Controversy over Justifying War in Iraq, Policy Brief F12A (Goshen, IN: Fourth Freedom Forum, June 2003), http://www.fourthfreedom.org. While the entire document is not available, significant portions were printed in the New York Times and the Washington Post. See Tyler and Gellman (1992, p. A1). Weisman (2003), For more details on the changes that occurred from Donald Rumsfeld’s first circulated draft to the version signed by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, see Tyler (1993). See the Just Response website, http://www.justresponse.net. Accessed 1 February 2008. Bob Wing, interview by author, 14 November, 2003. Leslie Cagan, veteran organizer, interview by author, 26 August, 2003. The Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party competed with groups in the Vietnam Mobilization Committee and sponsored its own coalition and separate mass rallies. For
224
9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.
Toward pacifism and peace movements today historical perspectives on the Vietnam movement, see Wells (1994) and DeBenedetti (1990). For a Socialist Workers Party perspective, see Halstead (1978). The 1998 congressional resolutions on Iraq are: Public Law 105-235, 105th Cong., 2d sess. (14 August, 1998) [Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998]; and Public Law 105-338, 105th Cong., 2d sess. (31 October, 1998) [Iraqi Breach of International Obligations]. Taylor (2002) and Martinez (2002). Reports of four to one constituent messages provided by Lynn Erskine, e-mail message to author, 22 December, 2003. Bill Fletcher, interview, by author, 16 December, 2003. Leslie Cagan, interview, by author, 26 August, 2003. Leslie Cagan, interview, by author, 26 August, 2003. Leslie Cagan, interview, by author, 26 August, 2003. Bill Fletcher, interview by author, 16 December, 2003. Kevin Martin, interview by author, 4 December, 2003. For a portrait of MoveOn, see Goldberg (2003). Gary Ferdman, interview by author, 23 December, 2003. Melissa Daar, e-mail message to author, 23 December, 2003. Based on personal conversations by author with the directors of the three organizations —Susan Shaer, Kevin Martin, and Bob Musil—September 2003.
REFERENCES Ackerman, Peter and Christopher Kruegler (1994), Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: The Dynamics of People Power in the 20th Century, Westport CT: Praeger, p. 26. Alinsky, Saul (1971), Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals, New York: Vintage Books, p. 113. Boyd, Andrew (2003), ‘The Web rewires the movement,’ The Nation, 277(4): 14. CBS (2002), ‘Plans for Iraq attack began on 9/11,’ 5 September, http://www. cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september 11/main520830.shtml. Accessed 1 February, 2008. Cirincione, Joseph (2003), ‘Origins of regime change in Iraq,’ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Proliferation Brief 6(5), http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfmfa=view&id=1214&prog=zgp&proj=znpp&zoo m_highlight=cirincione+origins+of+regime+change. Accessed 1 February, 2008. Chrisafis, Angelique et al. (2003), ‘Threat of war: millions worldwide rally for peace,’ The Guardian, 17 February: 6. Corn, David (2002), ‘Behind the placards: the odd and troubling origins of today’s antiwar movement,’ LA Weekly, 1–7 November. Cortright, David and Howard Zinn [1975] (2006), Soldiers In Revolt: GI Resistance During The Vietnam War, Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books. Cortright, David (1993), Peace Works: The Citizen’s Role in Ending the Cold War: Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Cortright, David (2002), ‘Stop the war before it starts,’ The Progressive, August: 18–21. ‘Counting crowds using aerial photography to estimate the size of Sunday’s peace march in S.F.’ (2003), San Francisco Chronicle, 21 February, http:sfgate.com/ cgi-bin/article.cgif=/c/a/2–3/02/21MN20213.DTL. Accessed 1 February, 2008. DeBenedetti, Charles (1990), An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam War, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Epstein, Barbara (2003), ‘Notes on the antiwar movement,’ Monthly Review, 55(3): 109.
The movement against war in Iraq
225
Frankel, Glenn (2003), ‘Millions worldwide protest Iraq War,’ Washington Post, 16 February: A1. Gellman, Barton (1992), ‘Keeping the U.S. first; Pentagon would preclude a rival superpower,’ Washington Post, 11 March: A1. Gill, Stephen (2003), Power and Resistance in the New World Order, London: Palgrave, p. 218. Gitlin, Todd (2002), ‘Who will lead?,’ Mother Jones, 14 October, http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/gitlin/2002/10/we_175_01.html. Accessed 1 February, 2008. Goldberg, Michelle (2003), ‘MoveOn Moves Up,’ Salon, 1 December, http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2003/12/01/moveon/print.html. Accessed 1 February, 2008. Gosse, Van, ‘February 15, 2003 in New York: a preliminary assessment,’ 17 February, http://www.historiansagainstwar.org/feb15van.html. Accessed 1 February, 2008. Halstead, Fred (1978), Out Now: A Participant’s Account of the Movement in the United States Against the Vietnam War, New York: Monad Press. Hedges, Chris (2003), ‘A long-time antiwar activist, escalating the peace,’ New York Times, 4 February: B2. Judis, John B. and Spencer Ackerman (2003), ‘The selling of the Iraq War: the first casualty,’ The New Republic, 30 June, http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/ issues/iraq/unmovic/2003/0630selling.htm. Accessed 1 February, 2008. LeVine, Mark (2003), ‘The peace movement plans for the future,’ Middle East Report (July), http://www.merip.org/mero/interventions/Levine_interv.html. Accessed 1 February, 2008. Lowell, Alan (2003), ‘1.5 million demonstrators in cities across Europe oppose a war in Iraq,’ New York Times, 16 February: A20. Martinez, Gebe (2002), ‘Democratic group finds tough sell in go-slow approach to war,’ Congressional Quarterly Weekly, 60(37): 2500. Moore, James F. (2003), ‘The second superpower rears its beautiful head,’ Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, http://cyber.law. Harvard.edu/people/jmoore/secondsuperpower.html. Accessed 1 February, 2008. Nunberg, Jeoffrey (2003), ‘As Google goes, so goes the nation,’ New York Times, 18 May, Section 4: 4. Packer, George (2003), ‘Smart-mobbing the war,’ New York Times Magazine, 9 March: 46. Pomper, Miles (2002a), ‘Bush hopes to avoid battle with Congress over Iraq,’ Congressional Quarterly Weekly, 60(33): 2252. Pomper, Miles (2002b), ‘Senate Democrats in disarray after Gephardt’s deal on Iraq,’ Congressional Quarterly Weekly, 60(38): 2606–07. Project for a New American Century (PNAC) (1998), ‘Letter to President Clinton on Iraq,’ 26 January, http://www.newmaericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm. Accessed 1 February, 2008. Project for a New American Century (PNAC) (2000), Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces, and Resources For a New Century. Project for a New American Century (PNAC) (2001), ‘Letter to President Bush,’ September 20, http://wwwnewamericancentury.org/Bushletter.htm. Accessed 1 February, 2008. Schell, Jonathan (2003), ‘The other superpower,’ The Nation, 27 March. http:// www.thenation.com/doc/20030414/schell. Accessed 1 February, 2008. Solnit, Rebecca (2003), ‘Acts of hope: challenging empire on the world state,’
226
Toward pacifism and peace movements today
Orion, 20 May, http://www.oriononline.org/pages/oo/sidebars/Patriotism/index_ SolnitPR.html. Accessed 1 February, 2008. Taylor, Andrew (2002), ‘Though neither party is crying “politics,” election year puts war vote on fast track,’ Congressional Quarterly Weekly, 60(34): 2317. Tyler, Patrick E. (1992), ‘U.S. strategy plan calls for insuring no rivals develop a one superpower world: Pentagon’s document outlines ways to thwart challenges to primacy of America,’ New York Times, 8 March. Tyler, Patrick E. (1993), ‘Pentagon drops goal of blacking new superpowers,’ New York Times, 23 May: A1. Tyler, Patrick E. (2003), ‘Threats and responses: news analysis; a new power in the street,’ New York Times, 17 February: A1. VandeHei, Jim and Juliet Eilperin (2002), ‘Congress passes Iraq resolution,’ Washington Post, 11 October: A1. Weisman, Steven (2003), ‘A new doctrine; pre-emption: idea with a lineage whose time has come,’ New York Times, 23 March: B1. Wells, Tom (1994), The War Within: America’s Battle Over Vietnam, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Woodward, Bob (2002), Bush at War, New York: Simon & Schuster, p. 99.
Index ABC triangle (Attitudes Behavior Conflict) 41–3 absolute pacifism 134–8 Ackerman, P. 222 Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) 197, 208–9 actor-oriented thinking 33–4 ad bello rules 40 Afghanistan War 20–21, 106 Agamben, G. 54 Ajami, Fouad 111–13 Alinsky, S. 222 Anabaptist Movement 98 anarchy 162 Andrews, Tom 217 ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) 197, 208–9 anti-democratic globalization 9–12 anti-globalization movement 185–94 anti-war-ism 131–2 anti-war movement 183–4, 196–9, 201–23 as superpower 203 anti-war pacifism 79–80 Kantian 80–83, 86, 90–91 Appiah, K.A. 64 Arab Predicament, The 113 Arendt, H. 63 Asad, T. 119 Ashcroft, B. 65 Ashley, R.K. 51, 66 At Peace and Unafraid 104 Augustine limited pacifism 78–9 Australia, and Bali terrorist acts 39 balance of power 7 balance of terror 26 Battle of Seattle 133, 185–7, 192 Bellah, R.N. 130 Biden, Joseph 210 Boal, I.A. 191 Bohman, J. 87
Boyd, A. 222 Britain see United Kingdom Buck-Morss, S. 117–18 Bush, George W. 85, 205, 206 Bush at War 205 Cagan, Leslie 213 Cambodia, demand for peace workers 180 Caputo, J.D. 63 Carr, M. 23 Castells, M. 190 casualty numbers, reaction to 5 Chomsky, N. 52 Christian pacifism 78, 97–108 Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) 97, 102, 108 Christianity and Islam 35–7 Clausewitz, Carl von 143 Clifford, J. 60 Clinton, Bill 85 CODEPINK 197 colonialism and conflict 36 common, the 63–4 communism, US action against 4–5 complex interdependence 159–60 conflict approaches to 33–5, 40–44 Spain 37–8 causes of 35–7 life cycles 43–4 Congress, US, vote on Iraq war 209–12 Connolly, W. 56 Consequences of Modernity, The 51 constitutional pacifism 131–8 domestic effects 145–7 global effects 147–9 Japan 128–49 and realism 138–47 constructivist theory 162 cosmopolitanism 83, 89 227
228 counter-insurgency policy 5 customary law 165 Debray, R. 53 defensive war 79–80 deliberation 63 democratic peace theory 84–7 democratization inequalities 7–9 Denmark, demand for peace workers 179 Derrida, J. 51, 52, 62, 66–7, 68 diaspora 57–62 ethics in 66 Dillon, M. 57–8 direct action groups 192–3 dispute resolution, international law 167–8 domestic peace, effects of Japanese Constitution 146 Dower, J. 144 Driedger, L. 108 Dunn, J. 144 Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism 25 e-activism 219–21 ecological refugees 14 eco-political victimization 12–15 Edgar, Bob 217 Einstein, Albert 17 Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II 144 empire, US 55–7 ensen pacifism 132–3 environmental concerns 12–15 Epstein, B. 201 equal rights 7–9 Exterminate All the Brutes 26 Filipino migration 58–60 Fletcher, Bill 213 Flikschuh, K. 88 Foucault, M. 49–50, 51, 56 Fox, Tom 97–8 Freivalds, Laila 163–4 Friere, P. 52, 63 Friesen, D.K. 107 Frum, David 205 Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism 117
Index Galtung, J. 132 Gandhian pacifism 78 Gephardt, Richard 210 Germany and Herero people, peace worker demand 179–80 Giddens, A. 51 Gill, S. 201 Gitlin, Todd 209 global democracy 87 global justice 87–90 World Social Forum 193 global militarization 6–7 global warming 14 globalization 156 anti-democratic 9–12 of political violence 20–26 and US peace movement 183–99 governments and peace movement 173–5 grassroots pacifism 133–4 Griffin, D. 23 Griffith, L. 107 Grotius (Hugo de Groot) 164 Gutmann, A. 86–7 Habermas, J. 63, 89 Heidegger, M. 63, 67 Herero people and Germany, peace worker demand 179–80 Hershberger, G.F. 99 Hoffmann, S. 89 hospitality to strangers 61–2 Huebner, H. 97 human rights and conflict discourse 41 effects of 9/11 89–90 humanitarian intervention 40–41 humanity 15–17 humiliated democracy, Japan 143–4 Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose 91 idealism 139, 173–5 ideas-oriented realism 141 identity 64 in bellum laws 40 inequalities 6–12, 88 Infernal Machine, The: A History of Terrorism 23 information as commodity 11–12
Index integration 35 Spain 37–8 intellectual idealism 50–51 intellectuals 62–8 Muslim 117–18 interdependence in foreign policy 159–60 international law 163, 164–8 need for 162, 170–71 international tribunals and international law 165–6 internationalism and peace movements 184–5 Internet and peace movement 189–91, 207–8, 218, 219–21, 222–3 Iraq War 169–70 anti-war movement 133–4, 184, 196–9, 201–23 Congressional war resolution 209–12 and democratic peace theory 85–6 injustice of 24 and United Nations 169–70 US determination for 170, 204–6 Ishibashi, M. 135 Islam 111–26 and Japan 121–5 Muslim intellectuals 117–18 Muslims in the US 111–17 as a religion of peace 113–17 and secularism 119–21 and the West 35–7 Israel-Palestine, demand for peace workers 180 Jackson, S. 113–14 Japan constitutional pacifism 128–49 demand for peace workers 180 and Islam 121–5 reaction to growth in Korea and China 10 jus ad bellum 79 jus in bello 79 just war 78–9, 106 Kant, I. 80–91, 136, 137 cosmopolitanism 83, 89, 90–91 Kashmir, demand for peace workers 180 Kaufman, L.A. 195
229
Keane, John 148 Keohane, R. 159 Kerry, John 211 Khadduri, Majid 126 King, Martin Luther 139 Kipling, R. 55–6 Klein, N. 188, 189–90 Koontz, G. G. 100, 103 Korea, demand for peace workers 180 Kraybill, D.B. 108 Kristeva, J. 66 Kruegler, C. 222 kyosei 52, 53 Lackey, D.P. 78, 79 Laclau, E. 67 Lashley, C. 61 law, international see international law Lederach, J.P. 101, 106 Levin, Carl 210 liberal internationalism 161–4 limited pacifism, Augustinian 78–9 Lindquist, S. 26 logocentric disposition of modernity 52 Lugar, Richard 210 Lyotard, J.F. 52 Mahbubani, K. 111 Maki, J.M. 131 Mamdani, M. 112 Martin, Kevin 217 McCarthyism 4–5 McEwan, I. 29 media 11 Menno Simons 99 Mennonite Conciliation Service (MCS) 101 Mennonite pacifism 98–108 impact of 9/11 103–8 Merod, J. 52 Mexico, demand for peace workers 181 migration, Filipino 58–60 Mikado 123–5 military action, Japan 129–30 military-power realism 139–40 modernity 51 Moltmann, J. 128 moral theory, Kant 80 Morgenthau, H. 158
230
Index
MoveOn 219–20, 221, 222 Mubarak, Hosni 24 multiculturalism 64 multilateral institutions 168–70 multipolarity 156 murder statistics, effect of constitutional pacifism 146 Muslims see Islam mutual assured destruction (MAD) 26 Myanmar, demand for peace workers 180 nationalism and pacifism, Japan 144–5 as response to 9/11 195–6 natural resource depletion, effect of 13–14 network pacifism 133–4, 189–91 9/11 impact on global justice movement 208 impact on peace movement 194–6 and Mennonite pacifism 103–8 as rupture 53–5 suspicions about 23 US response to 3–6, 20–26 9–11peace.org 207 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) 16–17, 192–3 non-state actors 44 non-violent pacifism 136–7 non-war-ism 136 North-South divide 9–11 Not in Our Name 197–8 nuclear proliferation 7–9 nuclear terrorism 8–9 Nussbaum, M.C. 88 Nye, J. 159 O’Brien, W.V. 79 Oguma, E. 144 oil shortage, effects 13 Onuf, P. 120 Oota, Y. 135 Orientalism 113 orientalism 118 Origuchi, S. 124–5 pacifism Christian 78, 97–108
of demilitarization 135 of immediate experiences, Japan 142–3 and Japanese Constitution 128–49 as national principle, Japan 144–5 by peaceful means 132 types of 78–80, 131–8 of war abolition 137–8 see also peace movements Papastergiadis, N. 58 Pape, R. 25 Pariser, Eli 207–8 Pax Americana 103 peace approaches to 40–44 and democracy 83–7 in Islam 113–17 Kantian theory 80–83 Peace by Peaceful Means 32 Peace Constitution, Japan 128–49 peace discourse 33–4 peace movements 91, 173–5, 183–4 history 184, 188–9 impact of 9/11 194–6 US 183–99 peace professionals 175–8 demand for 179–82 Peace Theology Research Project 104 Peace Works 202 peacebuilding 44 peacekeeping 44 perpetual peace, articles for (Kant) 81–2 Perpetual Peace, To: A Philosophical Sketch 81, 91 Pickering, David 207 PNAC (Project for a New American Century) 205 political realism 157–61 political violence, globalization of 20–26 Politics of Jesus, The 100–101 poverty and global justice 88–9 power and international relations 157–8 prisoners’ dilemma and international cooperation 158 Project for a New American Century (PNAC) 205
Index Qur’an, teaching on peace 114–17 radical pacifism 134–8 Japanese Constitution 129 Rawls, J. 85, 88 realism 173–5 in foreign policy 157–61 in Japanese Constitution 138–47 types of 138–41 reconciliation 43–4 reductionisms in Anglo-America’s terrorism construction 45–7 refugees, ecological 14 Reimer, A.J. 105–6 relation-oriented thinking 33–4 republicanism 84 resource depletion, effects of 13–14 Roth, J.D. 104–5 Rules for Radicals 222 Rumsfeld, Donald 205 ruptures and repetition 49–55 Russell, Bertrand 17 Russett, B. 84–5 Safran, W. 59 Said, E. 113 Sakamoto, Y. 144 Sampson, C. 101 San Juan, E. 58 Saturday 29 Sayyid, B. S. 117 Schell, J. 203, 204 Schleitheim Confession 99 sea level rise 14 search and destroy operations, US 5 Seattle anti-globalization demonstrations 133, 185–7, 192 secularism and Islam 119–21 security discourse 33–5 September 11 see 9/11 Shank, D. 106 Shatz, A. 112 Sheehan, Cindy 198 shock and awe tactics 27 Sider, R.J. 102 Slotkin, R. 57 social justice 87–90 soft power realism, Japanese Constitution 140–42 Sojourners 223
231
Soldiers in Revolt 202 Solnit, R. 202, 203 Spain, response to Madrid bombings 25, 37–8 Spivak, G.C. 50, 66 Sri Lanka, demand for peace workers 180 state terrorism 26–8 status-quo confirming realism 140 Sterba, J. P. 80 Stiglitz, J. 191 strangers, attitude to 61–2 Strategic Nonviolent Conflict 222 Straw, Jack 163–4 subjectivity and diaspora 60–61 Sykes/Picot treason 36 Teichmann, J. 129 Terajima, T. 133 terrorism construction reductionisms 45–7 definitions 8–9, 25 response to 25–6 state terrorism 26–8 terrorist acts against United States 3–4 see also 9/11 Thompson, D. 86–7 Thompson, E.P. 26 TRANSCEND (Peace and Development Network) 178 treaty law 165 True Majority 220 truthfulness of educational institutions 67 turbulent flows of migration 58 Turkey-Armenia, demand for peace workers 180 two kingdom theology 99 Tyler, P. 203 unilateral and foreign policy 158–9 United for Peace 213–14 United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) 197, 214–15, 216–17 United Kingdom response to London bombings 25 security approach 38–9 United Nations 160, 168
232
Index
and Iraq War 169–70 Security Council 160, 162 United States congressional war resolution 209–12 demand for peace workers 181 as empire 55–7 leadership role 155–6, 160–61 peace movements 183–99 response to 9/11 3–6, 20–26 terrorism against 3–4 see also 9/11 universal pacifism 78 university and intellectuals 62–8 utopian vision 64 victims, long-term grievances 36–7 violence causes of 33 effects of constitutional pacifism 146 Walker, R.B.J. 51, 66 Wallis, J. 105 war distinction from terrorism 25 media coverage 11 as response to terrorism 19–30 as state of nature 82
see also Afghanistan War; Iraq War 20–21, 106 war-abhorrence pacifism 132–3 war-opposition 131–2 War on Terrorism and the Terror of God, The 107 War Times 207 Wars of Al-Riddah 116 water supply shortages 13–14 Weaver, J.D. 104 West, The, and Islam 35–7 White Man’s Burden 55–6 Wilson, Woodrow 84 Win Without War 198, 215–18 Wing, Bob 207 Wolfowitz, Paul 204 Woodward, Bob 205 Working Assets 220, 221 World Social Forum (WSF) 193–4, 196 WTO, Seattle demonstrations 133, 185–7, 192 Yoder, J.H. 100–101, 106 Zapatero, José-Luis 37–8 Zum ewigen Frieden 137