County Courthouse, Lafayette, Indiana, January 27,
2018
Harry Targ
Threats
to Peace Today
We are here to reflect on movements for social and
economic justice one year into the administration of Donald Trump.
What caught my attention a few days ago was a press
conference that was organized by science editors of the esteemed journal, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. This
journal began publishing shortly after the end of World War II. Among its most
visible tasks has been tracking the probability of nuclear war. Using its metaphoric Doomsday Clock scientific experts estimate each year how close the world is moving toward nuclear war. The scientists last week moved the dials two minutes closer to midnight (to a dangerous two and one-half minutes to midnight). In other words, over the last year the United States and the world, the scientists say, have moved ever closer to nuclear war.
Reflecting on the policies of the last year that have led to this symbolic prediction of increasing possibility of nuclear war, we can reflect on several developments:
The recently issued National Security Strategy
document issued by the Trump Administration indicates US policy would shift
from the war on terrorism to homeland security. This shift would be
complemented by the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons and a
strategy based on the primacy of threats from Russia and China.
The Trump Administration in conjunction with Congress
(with support from both parties) has approved a military budget for the coming
year in excess of $700 billion, 68 percent of federal discretionary spending.
The Trump Administration is continuing the trajectory
of maintaining US troops and private contract armies in 1,000 military
installations in anywhere from 70 to 170 countries. The US continues to expand
its military presence on the African continent.
The Trump Administration over the last several months
has been engaged in a rhetorical war with North Korea, while US and South
Korean military forces engage in simulated military exercises. The US has
constructed a new provocative anti-missile installation in South Korea as well.
The Trump Administration has threatened to withdraw
from the nonproliferation treaty with Iran, has announced its intention of
expanding troop strength in Afghanistan, and has placed thousands of US troops
in Syria.
The United States has withdrawn from the Paris Climate
Agreement, begun to reverse improved relations with Cuba, and continues to
escalate its efforts to destabilize governments such as in Venezuela and
Bolivia.
And, President Trump announced that the US embassy was
moving from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a position not only condemned by the
Palestinian people but by virtually every country in the world.
All of these historical developments in United States
foreign policy are occurring in the context of an international system that is
shifting away from United States hegemony to a multipolar world. Countries such
as China are experiencing economic development that challenges the economic
domination that the United States has held over the global political economy
for 100 years. To overcome this declining relative economic power, the United
States is pursuing greater advances in military power. This combination of
economic decline and military advance makes the world a more dangerous place.
The
Historic Role of Women in Peace and Justice Movements
As women and men organized politically during 2017,
and come together in January, 2018 to celebrate this mobilization, it is
critical to reflect on the centrality of women in the struggle for a peaceful
world. Campaigns for social and economic justice and women’s movements, and
particularly women’s peace movements, are inextricably connected.In 1915, 1,200 women from diverse backgrounds met in the Hague to create what became the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). They opposed World War I and would continue to oppose war in the over 100 years of their existence. They also demanded that women play a role in decision-making about all matters of foreign policy, including decisions concerning war and peace.
WILPF, the oldest peace group in the United States was
led for many years by Jane Addams, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.
In 1961 another women’s peace group, Women Strike for Peace, organized a
day-long national strike of 50,000 women in 60 cities demanding nuclear disarmament.
They opposed nuclear testing, increased radiation in the atmosphere and marched
to the slogan, “End the Arms Race: Not the Human Race.” Women Strike for Peace
became early opponents of the escalating Vietnam war. Among its prominent
spokespersons was soon-to-be Congresswoman Bella Abzug.
Code
Pink
is a grassroots women-led organization opposing war and militarism. It was
organized in 2002 and includes militant activists such as Medea Benjamin and
Colonel Ann Wright. Code Pink advocates peace, a human rights agenda, and
demands conversion from military spending to spending for health care, green
jobs, and the general welfare. They have been active in campaigns for justice
for the Palestinian people and in opposition to United States support for
violence perpetuated by Saudi Arabia in the Middle East.
The writing and activism of Jane Addams has been an
important inspiration that runs throughout the educational, advocacy, and
militant peace activity of women for the last 100 years. Addams’ classic essay,
“Newer Ideals of Peace” was originally published in 1907 and reissued with an
introduction by Berenice Carroll and Clint Fink in 2007 by the University of
Illinois Press.
In this essay, Carroll and Fink indicate that Addams postulated
that the tasks of peace activists must go beyond just stopping war. According
to Addams, achieving what peace
researchers later called “negative peace,” ending wars, must be coupled with
“positive peace.” Positive peace includes transformations of the societies that
engaged in warfare. These transformations must include the end of hierarchies
of all kinds including patriarchy, paternalism, the criminal justice system,
and systems of domination and subordination at the workplace. Addams wrote that
there needed to be a theoretical and practical shift from individualism and
property rights to community. The spirit of nationalism must be replaced by
internationalism. In sum, advocating for social and economic justice was needed
along with demanding an end to shooting wars.
We move ahead in these troubled times inspired by the
great fighters for racial justice including Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman,
Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Angela Davis.
We are also inspired by those who struggled for workers’
rights: Joe Hill, Mother Jones, Paul Robeson, A. Philip Randolph, John L.
Lewis, and Sidney Hillman.
And,
as the Doomsday Clock ticks toward midnight, we desperately need to reacquaint
ourselves with our foremothers whose ideas and activism have been central to
movements for peace and justice throughout the world.
