A Pox On Your Peace!
As September 11 approaches, I figured we'd see an increased flow of propaganda, both official and unofficial, designed to remind us that we are at war against an enemy that would deprive us of our safety, our liberty, our very sanctified way of life. I was right. Today's Los Angeles Times contains an op-ed piece written by Bruce Bawer that takes aim at the peace movement. It's title, "The Peace Racket," is a dead giveaway as to the nature of the arguments to be employed. Invoking both "Neville Chamberlain" and "naive Quakers", Mr. Bawer makes it clear that working for peace is idealistic at best, and disastrous appeasement at worst.
Conflict happens, power matters, and it's better to be strong than to be weak. Human history has demonstrated repeatedly that you're safer if your enemies know you'll stand up for yourself than if you're proudly outspoken about your defenselessness or your unwillingness to fight. Yet this truth is denied not only by the Nobel Peace Center film but by the fast-growing, troubling movement that the center symbolizes and promotes.
I'm not talking here about a bunch of naive Quakers or idealistic high school students, but about a movement of savvy, ambitious professionals that is already comfortably ensconced at the United Nations, in the European Union and in many nongovernmental organizations. The peace racket, as I've come to think of it, embraces scores of "peace institutes" and "peace centers" in the U.S. and Europe, plus several hundred peace studies programs at universities such as UC Berkeley and Cornell.
Obviously, anything taught at Bezerkeley has to be communistic at its root, yes? And those professors doing the teaching are all suspect because they all have a history of criticizing the US for its foreign and domestic policies. The hits then start rolling as the author uses not-so-subtle ad hominem attacks on those people who would teach peace, including Johan Galtung who established the International Peace Research Institute in 1959. The only peace leader who doesn't come in for Mr. Bawer's scathing opprobrium is that noted American peacenik, former President Jimmy Carter, an omission I find curious.
What's taught in peace studies departments around the country generally remains faithful to Galtung's inspiration. Many professors emphasize that the world's great evil is capitalism -- because it leads to imperialism, which in turn leads to war. And many students acquire a zero-sum picture of the world economy: If some countries and people are poor, it's because others are rich. They're taught that American wealth derives from exploitation and that Americans, accordingly, are responsible for world poverty.
As for America's response to terrorism, David Barash and Charles Webel tidily sum up the view of many peace studies professors in "Peace and Conflict Studies," their widely used 2002 textbook: "A peace-oriented perspective condemns not only terrorist attacks but also any violent response to them." How, then, are democracies supposed to respond to aggression? Should we open an instant dialogue? Should we make endless concessions? Should we apologize? Neville Chamberlain's 1938 capitulation to Hitler at Munich taught -- or should have taught -- that appeasement just puts off a final reckoning, giving an enemy time to gain strength. But the foundation of the peace racket's success lies in forgetting this lesson. What its adherents learn is the opposite: If you want to ensure peace, appease tyranny -- and there will be no more war. [Emphasis added]
Well, Mr. Bawer, the peace movement merely suggests that people have more tools to respond to "aggression" than war-making and appeasement. It is just that limited mindset that the peace racketeers are trying to crack open.
Making peace is always more difficult and more complicated than making war, especially in a country with an administration that believes "pre-emptive war" is a viable response to anything. But, given the costs of war, as we are currently re-learning, developing a set of alternatives is clearly a strategy worth developing. I guess the concept is a bit too difficult for Mr. Bawer to grasp.
Note: for more substantial thinking on peace and peacemaking steps, go visit Pax Americana. The site also has information on the September 15 peace actions occurring in Washington, D.C. and around the nation.
Conflict happens, power matters, and it's better to be strong than to be weak. Human history has demonstrated repeatedly that you're safer if your enemies know you'll stand up for yourself than if you're proudly outspoken about your defenselessness or your unwillingness to fight. Yet this truth is denied not only by the Nobel Peace Center film but by the fast-growing, troubling movement that the center symbolizes and promotes.
I'm not talking here about a bunch of naive Quakers or idealistic high school students, but about a movement of savvy, ambitious professionals that is already comfortably ensconced at the United Nations, in the European Union and in many nongovernmental organizations. The peace racket, as I've come to think of it, embraces scores of "peace institutes" and "peace centers" in the U.S. and Europe, plus several hundred peace studies programs at universities such as UC Berkeley and Cornell.
Obviously, anything taught at Bezerkeley has to be communistic at its root, yes? And those professors doing the teaching are all suspect because they all have a history of criticizing the US for its foreign and domestic policies. The hits then start rolling as the author uses not-so-subtle ad hominem attacks on those people who would teach peace, including Johan Galtung who established the International Peace Research Institute in 1959. The only peace leader who doesn't come in for Mr. Bawer's scathing opprobrium is that noted American peacenik, former President Jimmy Carter, an omission I find curious.
What's taught in peace studies departments around the country generally remains faithful to Galtung's inspiration. Many professors emphasize that the world's great evil is capitalism -- because it leads to imperialism, which in turn leads to war. And many students acquire a zero-sum picture of the world economy: If some countries and people are poor, it's because others are rich. They're taught that American wealth derives from exploitation and that Americans, accordingly, are responsible for world poverty.
As for America's response to terrorism, David Barash and Charles Webel tidily sum up the view of many peace studies professors in "Peace and Conflict Studies," their widely used 2002 textbook: "A peace-oriented perspective condemns not only terrorist attacks but also any violent response to them." How, then, are democracies supposed to respond to aggression? Should we open an instant dialogue? Should we make endless concessions? Should we apologize? Neville Chamberlain's 1938 capitulation to Hitler at Munich taught -- or should have taught -- that appeasement just puts off a final reckoning, giving an enemy time to gain strength. But the foundation of the peace racket's success lies in forgetting this lesson. What its adherents learn is the opposite: If you want to ensure peace, appease tyranny -- and there will be no more war. [Emphasis added]
Well, Mr. Bawer, the peace movement merely suggests that people have more tools to respond to "aggression" than war-making and appeasement. It is just that limited mindset that the peace racketeers are trying to crack open.
Making peace is always more difficult and more complicated than making war, especially in a country with an administration that believes "pre-emptive war" is a viable response to anything. But, given the costs of war, as we are currently re-learning, developing a set of alternatives is clearly a strategy worth developing. I guess the concept is a bit too difficult for Mr. Bawer to grasp.
Note: for more substantial thinking on peace and peacemaking steps, go visit Pax Americana. The site also has information on the September 15 peace actions occurring in Washington, D.C. and around the nation.
posted by Diane at 5:23 AM
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