Something Thoughtful

    

 Nicholas Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree or disagree with him.   

                                             WHY I AM NOT A PACIFIST

           How many of you like war?   Virtually none I would guess and neither do I.  If we think back to very ancient days, we could think about men fighting with spears or sling-shots, or men on horses, or knights in armour, or arrows or even the early use of gunpowder and artillery.   It almost seems romantic.  But of course that is just daydreaming.  Even in ancient times, soldiers were killed, slaughter covered the battle-grounds, survivors would be maimed and usually the battles had achieved little.  And don’t forget how non-combatants would often also suffer.  So we don’t like war.  And of course we now have even more lethal weapons, from the First World War to the Second World War to the present day we have had gas, long-range artillery, bombing, nuclear weapons, drones and missiles that can pick out exact places and destroy them.  Goodbye to towns, to cities, to homes.

          So, like you, I do not like war.  And over thousands of years, people have tried to find ways to stop wars.  The ancient Greek and Roman philosophers tried [without much success] to put together codes that would limit wars.  Jesus Christ said, in the sermon on the mount, “Blessed are the peace-makers”.   Hindus and Buddhists and Jains claimed that war was abominable.  Many of the so-called “Enlightenment” wrote about the evil of war.  I regret to say that while Islam has always claimed to be “the Religion of Peace” it’s founder Mohammed was himself a warrior who waged wars; but at least some of his followers have tried to find ways of bringing peace. Over the years there have been many honourable people who have written against war.  Tolstoy, the Quakers, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Simon Weil, Archibald Baxter.  Recently the Pope has written about the need for peace – apparently annoying some Americans who think that their president knows better.  And over the years there have been poets who had come to abhor war, especially poets who had been soldiers themselves – Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and Edmund Blunden who ended up writing a book about the pointlessness of war…but wait a minute, that was in the First World War and it was a very different kettle of fish in the Second World War. 

Which brings me to what I think are the flaws of Pacifism.

Isn’t it reasonable for a country to protect itself with force when it is likely to be invaded by a hostile country?  In fact, wouldn’t it be reasonable for a country to have an army [or navy etc.] ready?  I know that some countries put together large forces, claiming that they are just protecting themselves, when in fact they are simply getting ready to invade another country.  This is a story as old as time.  Empires were built on this pretence.  Thus were built the Chinese, the Indian, the Egyptian, the Muslim, the British, the French, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Russian, the Zulu [and many other African countries] and as many other empires as you can think of. But even so, nations have the right to protect themselves.

         And isn’t it obvious that fully pacifist peoples are the first to be destroyed?  Look no further than New Zealand.  The Moriori people of the Chatham islands were absolutely pacifist. In the 19^th century, they were wiped out by more war-like Maori. [Footnote: I am aware that many Maori iwi were not belligerent, and we should all know about Parihaka.]

And I must point out that pacifism easily fades away when a real war comes along.          Item: In the 1920’s and 1930’s there was, in Europe, great disillusion with regard to war.  The First World War had exhausted them.  Cities and towns had been destroyed; millions of people had been killed; money had been wasted for no real reason; many maimed solders could be seen in the streets or were in hospitals because of “shell-shock”, and there were many novels written saying that war was an abomination [read All Quiet on the Western Front and keep reading].  In the 1930s Dick Sheppard put together the Peace Pledge, so that thousands of people in England signed on for his pledge, that we would never go to war again…and then along came the Spanish Civil War…and some pacifists changed their minds, and went off to fight Franco…and then Hitler invaded Poland and the country realised that they were now facing a real war.  I must add that many pacifists realised that they had to fight against tyranny.  Unfortunately, some pacifists took the easy way [like Aldous Huxley] and took off to the United States.  The hard fact is that many pacifists are pacifists only when they are not facing a war that could kill them.

I trust that what I have said is not facetious.  What I cling to is the Just War Theory. Before and after the Middle Ages, the theory was developed. The most influential two philosophers who wrote about war were Saint Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.  What they both essentially said was that war can only be used for defence.  It was wrong for Kings and Emperors to go to war simply for personal glory.  But it was legitimate for a country to defend a community and protect allies. Personally, I would add that violent uprisings in wars of liberation are legitimate.

So I go back to saying that I am not a Pacifist but this does not mean that I am a war monger.  I would also have to point out that I have read many works by pacifists which I have found enlightening. They are very worth reading and I admire their idealism.