V. Conclusion
For instance, as far back as 1693, William Penn published "An Essay Towards the Peace of Europe," proposing the creation of a European parliament as a way of avoiding wars between the various continental powers. In the short run, no statesmen paid much attention; but in the long run, this essay became one of the intellectual ancestors of the current European Union, which has helped end wars among states which used to fight each other regularly.
More than two centuries later, it was a British Friend, Lewis Fry Richardson, working alone and without encouragement for many years after world War One, who essentially invented the discipline of peace research. A generation later, two more Quakers, Elise and Kenneth Boulding took Richardson’s work and moved it forward by orders of magnitude.
In the 1970s, another Quaker couple, Miriam and Sam Levering, labored quietly but very effectively to promote the successful negotiation of the Law of the Sea treaty.
Other examples could be cited. (Many can be found, in thumbnail form, in the pioneering summary-overview of Quaker peace work in the twentieth century prepared by a young scholar, Maya Wilson, for the volume, Sustaining Peace Witness in the Twenty-First Century.) These were efforts which did not aim directly at countering political power; but they were ambitious, and conceived on a large conceptual scale: they aimed to alter the overall context in which politicians do their work. To paraphrase a more recent politician, they "triangulated"; they aimed at preventing war "in general."
If we reformulate Jerry Frost’s question about the churches, to ask whether they--and in particular, Friends -- have had any effect in ending or preventing wars in general, I think the answer of history is much less bleak than that given his more particular inquiry. However, the successes of any such "high concept" projects are paradoxical, in that they are likely to be quiet incremental, and as undramatic as the Law of the Sea treaty, a document including several hundred articles and reams of mind-numbing technical text.
This very undramatic character, along with the fact that their impact is measurable primarily in terms of what does not happen, is essentially the very antithesis of "news," and thus makes such witness all but invisible to the sensation-dependent media. Yet this is precisely why the Leverings worked for the success of the Law of the Sea treaty: because it would and does provide ways of resolving maritime disputes without combat. The Alternatives to Violence Project is another example of such quietly successful Quaker work, though it does not yet operate on a comparable scale.
Each of these projects by itself may not seem like much. But taken together, and over time, they add up to more than the sum of the parts. A third contributor to A Continuing Journey addressed this prospect very aptly. David Jackman, from the Quaker UN Office, suggested that efforts like those just mentioned, along with many others, are beginning to pay a kind of compound interest, in the form of another new paradigm, the fifth and last on my list, that of an "Emerging Peace Structure" for the world.
This "peace structure," which is part formal and part informal, consists, Jackman says, of "a cycle of overlapping and interrelated programs that begin with conflict preventive actions, move on to more crisis oriented steps...then respond during post-violence ("post-conflict") stages with peacekeeping, humanitarian and eventually long-term development programs.
"The overall aim," Jackman continues, "is not to suppress conflicts -- they will be inevitable and, indeed, necessary -- but to ‘inoculate’ societies against using violence as a means of conflict management."
This "structure" is not centrally organized, and Jackman is careful to emphasize that "emerging" in his description means we are still a long way from nirvana. Further, with a bow to the cops-vs.-generals divide, he concedes that in the near term, when violence gets out of control, "there may well be a need to stabilize the situation by the imposition of a peacekeeping force. These operations are likely to be military in nature for some time into the future. They require some capabilities and skills that at present only the military is organized to provide at the necessary scale and speed." This caveat seems to me only realistic.
Nevertheless, Jackman sees the quiet efforts of many groups, on many fronts, contributing to something new and important on the world scene. Friends have played many important roles in this structure’s development, along with other religious peace workers. If this structure finally does "emerge," it could prove to be the next major exception to Jerry Frost’s depressing catalog of failure.
Jackman believes there are many ways, globally and locally, we can plug into this work. There is much to learn, but no grand coalition to join, no single party platform to endorse. I was going to add that there are no dues to pay, but of course there are, in the sense that the blues singers use that term: If any Friend wants to work seriously and constructively in a field of international conflict, she or he will have plenty of dues to pay. There is another advantage as well:
Work against war "in general" is much less subject to the recurring differences of conviction over oppression vs. war. It points toward a day, distant perhaps but not inconceivable, when this cruel choice could be resolved simply by becoming largely obsolete.
In the meantime, if future wars resemble the past, conflicts which are relatively easy for most Friends to oppose, like Vietnam, will also be relatively rare. The new war is likely to be more typical (like the U.S. Civil War, and World Wars I and II). If so, we can expect to see Lincoln’s dilemma surface again, along with the predictable differences over the horns of terrorism vs. war. In such cases, Friends will do the best we can, and most will probably feel, with some justice, that we have not done enough.
Nevertheless, Jackman offers an informed, hopeful vision in the midst of the gloom generated since September 11. I share his sense that Quaker and religious pacifist peace witness that is indigenous, inner-directed, cooperative, and deploys our resources with strategic vision can, over time, have a significant, and usually surprising impact on the larger society and the problem of war "in general." It will be an impact most visible to the informed eyes of people of faith, who can see beyond the diversionary spectacles offered by the mass media; but the media do not define reality.
In particular, Jackman wisely notes that this vision can help us "combat the inevitable fear that we have to fix everything. We can choose what is appropriate or crucial for us to do, and know that others will do likewise. Too often nothing gets done when we treat peace work as a huge amorphous cloud of needy symptoms. We need to explore situations, identify what our best contribution can be and then stick at them." This advice applies, I might add, even to those who are called to work on policy issues in Washington, DC.
When it comes to the new war, what can this mean? Once the war is over, – if it ever is – there will be lots of room for work involving the three Rs of peacework: relief, reconstruction and reconciliation. These are all part of the long-term work of peacebuilding. In the meantime, we can’t forget about the Fourth "R", that of ongoing efforts to resist and counter militarist ideology and propaganda, even if these efforts often feel like the cries of voices in the wilderness. This need for Resistance could become much more important if, as I very much fear, the ever-expanding demands of America’s new imperial project ultimately requires a return tothe military draft.
Even Jerry Frost affirmed that "the church can provide a sanctuary, and it can defend those who for Christ’s or conscience’ sake refuse to fight, and stand as a rebuke to those who seek to sacralize war." I suspect we will also have opportunities to defend our civil liberties, shrunken as they are under recent "anti-terror" legislation. Paradigms shift and shift again, but that still leaves, to borrow another biblical metaphor, many fields ripe for the harvest.
In short, what does the new war mean from a Quaker religious pacifist perspective? Well, for this Quaker, it provides a useful reminder of our limitations, and gives us a full plate of intellectual and spiritual sorting out to do. At the same time, for those who still feel called to pursue the path of pacifist witness despite its uncertainties, we still have plenty to do.
On this path, discouragement, suffering and confusion may be our frequent companions; but despair is not a option.
Shifting Paradigms list:
1. Political solidarity in US policy circles.
2. Lincoln’s Dilemma: War or terrorism, which is worse?
3. Cops vs. generals?
4. American Activism vs Christian non-resistance/leaven-in-the-loaf
5. Focus on an emerging peace structure vs. protest against the endless wars.
Copyright (c) 1999, 2002 by Chuck Fager. All rights reserved.
Bibliographic notes:
The essays cited here by J.William Frost, David Jackman, and Dan Seeger are all published in: A Continuing Journey: Papers from the Quaker Peace Roundtable, Pendle Hill 1995, edited by Chuck Fager. Pendle Hill, 1996. Sustaining Peace Witness in the Twenty-First Century, also edited by Chuck Fager, was published by Pendle Hill in 1997.