| Review of: | War Is a Crime against Humanity: The Story of War Resisters' International by Devi Prasad |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Scott H. Bennett |
| Reviewed in: | Peace & Change |
| Date accepted online: | 14/01/2008 |
| Published in print: | Volume 32, Issue 04, Pages 590-612 |
Book Reviews
In 1921, European pacifists, meeting in Bilthoven, Holland, founded a secular, mixed-gender, pacifist federation named Paco (Esperanto for peace). In 1923, Paco renamed itself the War Resisters' International (WRI), moved its headquarters to London, and elected H. Runham Brown, a British conscientious objector (CO) who spent over two years in prison during World War I, secretary of the fledging transnational organization, a position that he held until his death in 1949. WRI members signed a declaration: "War is a crime against humanity. We therefore are determined not to support any kind of war and to strive for the removal of all causes of war." A "statement of principles," which accompanied the declaration, elaborated on the declaration. The WRI would reject wars to defend the state, to support the status quo, and to liberate the proletariat. It would also work to abolish the "causes" of war, which include capitalism, racism, militarism, nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, and religious intolerance. This position led the WRI-a "freedom movement" (p. 448)-to oppose the status quo and advocate nonviolent social-political revolution; not surprisingly, WRI leaders and activists have often been socialists and anarchists.
Devi Prasad worked with Gandhi, cofounded WRI-India, and served as the WRI secretary-general (1962-1972) and chairperson (1972-1975). Thus, Prasad is well equipped to write an insider's view of the WRI and global pacifism. In
In Section II, the most important part of the book, Prasad surveys the neglected history of the WRI to 1975. He documents WRI opposition to the Spanish civil war, World War II, the Cold War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and other wars and armed social revolutions. He tells the story of select COs, whose refusal to bear arms often led to their imprisonment and occasionally even death. He surveys WRI campaigns against conscription, militarism, and weapons. He discusses nonviolent methods, including the plan by Bart de Ligt, a Dutch pacifist anarchist who, in the 1930s, advocated boycotts, general strikes, and noncooperation to make a nonviolent revolution. Prasad does a good job of discussing the "third way," an attempt to build a nonviolent "third camp" alternative to the U.S. and Soviet power blocs during the Cold War; the World Peace Brigade, a unit created in 1962 dedicated to nonviolent action to prevent or end armed conflicts; the WRI response to the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia; and Operation Omega, the 1971 WRI project that defied Pakistan's blockade and trucked relief supplies into Bangladesh during its war of independence.
According to Prasad, in the 1960s and early 1970s, the WRI underwent several notable shifts. First, the organization broadened its focus from a European/Anglo-Saxon emphasis on conscientious objection to a broader concern with "Third World" issues (e.g., the Arab-Israeli conflict, the struggle against apartheid, and national liberation movements); at the same time, it explicitly embraced nonviolent direct action to promote its agenda. Second, the WRI began to place greater emphasis on nonviolent revolution, a position expressed by the Manifesto of Nonviolent Revolution (1972). Third, it began to cooperate with the communist World Council of Peace. Prasad, who became the WRI secretary-general in 1962, championed these shifts in policy and direction.
Unfortunately, Prasad provides neither a participant-observer's inside account nor a scholarly treatment of the WRI; stated differently, this book is neither a personal memoir nor an interpretive monograph. Much of the book consists of excerpts from documents, often several pages in length, cobbled together by brief comments or passages to form a narrative. These WRI documents include press releases, minutes of the executive committee and International Council, resolutions, reports, pamphlets, and articles published in the WRI magazine,
Too often, Prasad presents (through long excerpts) WRI organizational events, often conferences, without explaining their significance. Similarly, he often reports WRI positions and statements without discussing contending views within the WRI or their impact without. In addition, he mainly ignores the dynamic relationship between WRI headquarters and WRI sections. Also, there are numerous errors, misspellings, and inconsistencies; for instance, Prasad asserts that "US atom bombs were dropped over these two cities [Hiroshima and Nagasaki], even after Japan had announced its intention of unconditionally surrendering" (p. 290).
With a few exceptions, Prasad ignores both the scholarly literature and major primary sources, unpublished and published, including valuable memoirs. He used the WRI papers at the International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam) and the Swarthmore College Peace Collection (USA). But he did not use other essential manuscript sources, including the papers of WRI Sections and WRI activists. For instance, in his brief treatment of pacifism, conscription, and CO activism in the United States during World War II, he cites no sources and ignores archival sources and published monographs, biographies, and memoirs. Of course, such a project in international history, which requires multiarchival transnational research, is a daunting task made more difficult by the dearth of studies on WRI sections. Like previous social historians who wrote community studies, peace historians might best contribute to writing a history of the WRI (and other transnational pacifist organizations) by first writing the history of its sections, campaigns, and leaders.
Yet, despite these flaws, diligent readers will learn much about the WRI and radical pacifism from this book, particularly from the excerpted documents. Perhaps Devi Prasad-a significant figure in the modern global pacifist movement-will still write his memoirs; that, too, would be a valuable contribution.