Pacifism

World religious leaders in search of world peace.

Mahatma Gandhi, illustrious representative of modern pacifism.

Pacifism is the set of doctrines aimed at maintaining peace among nations. It opposes war and other forms of violence through a political or religious movement, or as an ideology specific. Some of the means that pacifism uses in pursuit of its ends are: active nonviolence, diplomacy, civil disobedience, boycott, conscientious objection, outreach campaigns, and education for peace.

By pacifist can be understood any current of thought and action that aspires to make possible the conditions so that the absence of war is a permanent state of human relations, both between States, nations and peoples as well as between individuals.

In the history of humanity, periods without wars (understood as "all conflicts that involve one or more governments and the use of weapons, and that cause a thousand or more deaths throughout a year") have been much longer than the war periods^{[citation needed]}. War has been an exception to a normality basically characterized by peace. Just think of the tens of thousands of years – the entire Paleolithic and two-thirds of the Neolithic – in which humanity survived without states, armies or police. This does not mean, obviously, that individual and group violence was not present at that time. It was, of course it was, but at derisory levels compared to those reached after the beginning of "civilization". Likewise, since its origins, humanity has resolved most individual and collective conflicts without resorting to the massive and permanent use of weapons. And it continues to do so every day. How has it been and is that possible? It is because human beings, without receiving special training for it, have known how to find non-violent solutions to the multiple conflicts in which they have been and are immersed in their lives. Contrary to what many people believe, pacifism is not something foreign to the human experience, but something deeply rooted in it. What pacifism, especially after Gandhi's life and work, actually seeks to convert into technical knowledge what human beings have been practicing spontaneously for thousands of years. That is to say, the same but the opposite of what the professional military intends to do regarding the exercise of physical violence.

It is worth adding that the demand to end wars also appears in the famous preamble to the Charter of the United Nations. It says: "We the peoples of the world, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war which twice during our lifetimes has inflicted untold suffering upon humanity." However, seriously considering the objective of uninventing war as a means of resolving conflicts, forces us to go beyond preventing the outbreak of hostilities between two opposing sides: it is necessary to eradicate the root causes that generate social unrest that can be converted into popular support for a war. In this sense, a pacifism aware of the dimensions of the task that is proposed must be associated with the set of social and political forces that fight for a just humanity on a habitable earth. Since this project is going to have its enemies, pacifism should not be understood as passivity in the face of situations of misery, exploitation and political oppression. For this reason, Gandhi and Gandhism are fundamental to contemporary pacifism: his life and work are a permanent example of how one can fight for what is considered just without contributing to increasing the "infinite reply", the endless spiral of action. -reaction-action, which starts the recourse to violence.

History

Pacifism is a doctrine that has been present in several world cultures, mainly in the Eastern tradition with currents such as Chinese philosophy or Hinduism and in the Western one with the Judeo-Christian tradition.

In Chinese philosophy, perhaps its main exponents are Confucius, who understands pacifism as the love of life and all its expressions, including the human being, and Lao-Tzu, who returns us to nature, understanding pacifism as self-control and awareness of our violent acts.

In Hinduism it appears with the concept of áhimsa, which is respect for all forms of life and the denial of all violence, this is what Mahatma Gandhi understands and transforms into both personal and collective action. This concept, more than encompassing a virtue, is rather understood as a mode of conduct.

The appearance of pacifism in the West goes back to when the first Christians refused to take up arms and use violence, for which they used a phrase from the Sermon on the Mount: "Do not resist violence with force& #34;.

Over the centuries, various Christian groups taught pacifism (or "non-resistance"), such as the Waldensians, Moravian brotherhood, Anabaptists, Quakers, early Methodists, and other minor groups. Today, it is mostly the groups descended from the Anabaptists (the Amish, the Mennonites, and the Hutterites) who practice nonresistance as an essential doctrine.

Pacifism began to be defined from the 18th century by numerous personalities:

• Leibniz (1646-1716), apart from a philosopher, was a mathematician, historian, theologian and diplomat. He traveled all over Europe establishing contacts with many different people. This did so to try to achieve understanding and understanding, as its purpose was to create an exact and universal language.
• François Marie Voltaire(1694-1778) French philosopher and great defender of peaceful coexistence among people of different beliefs and religions.
• Rousseau (1712-1778), a French philosopher and writer, highlighted for attacking the government, the teaching system and the Catholic Church. During the French Revolution it was intended to achieve the individual freedoms and human rights that Rousseau mentioned.
• Bentham (1748-1832), an English jurist and economist, thought that good was pleasure and evil was pain. He tried to create a moral system in which every person chose the pleasure that most happiness gave him, according to his interest, thus obtaining the benefit of others.
• Saint-Simon (1760-1825) was a French sociologist who created an industrial system in which Christians tried to improve the situation of the poor through non-violent methods.
• Leon Tolstói (1828-1910) Russian writer whose ideas on “non-active violence”, expressed in books had a profound impact on great characters such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
• Jean Jaurès (1859-1914) French socialist politician who strongly opposed the First World War. His posture for pacifism, shortly before the outbreak, ended with his murder three days after the beginning of this war.
• H. G. Wells (1866-1946) English and pacifist writer, pioneer in questioning in his works the ethical limits of science and technology.

Modern pacifism

But the strongest and most important impulses towards pacifism were during the 20th century with some advocates, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. Where these people, apart from writing about pacifism, put it into practice, influencing his method in other defenses of social causes in the world:

• Gandhi (1869-1948) was a Hindu lawyer and politician who fought in the Indian Independence Movement for his own methods, such as limited fasting and interception of trains by an unarmed crowd that lay along the tracks. As a champion of Indian nationalism, he preached peace in various ways, and was imprisoned for it several times. Once released, he suffered several attacks and was killed by a Hindu fan in Delhi, India. His ashes were thrown into the Ganges River.
• Martin Luther King (1929-1968) was an American pastor and leader, the leading leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.
• John Lennon, a member of The Beatles, prepared Imagine in 1971 and asked the world to end violence. As Gandhi and Luther King, Lennon also failed to be killed on 8/12/1980 by a follower named Mark David Chapman
• Óscar Romero (1917-1980) was an archbishop of El Salvador's enemy of the violence exercised by the extreme right-wing nationalist and army. He defended the oppressed and was killed during a mass.
• Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) was a humanist lawyer and activist who fought for the racial emancipation of South Africa along with the African National Congress with which he ruled the country in the late 1990s after being 27 years in prison.
• Chico Mendes (1944-1988) was an environmentalist who fought by peaceful means for the defense of the Amazon and the creation of cooperatives in Brazil, died murdered.
• Tenzin Gyatso (1935) today dalái lama, and as such, spiritual leader, was head of State of Tibet. His country was invaded and annexed by communist China, and since then it began a peaceful struggle to recover it.
• Luigi Ferrajoli (1940) is an Italian jurist and one of the main theorists of the legal guarantee, a theory that initially developed in the field of criminal law but which considers, in general, a paradigm applicable to the guarantee of all fundamental rights. Ferrajoli is defined as a critical iuspositivist.

Other important events in the 20th century were:

• As a result of the events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during August 1945, eleven major scientists decided to sign and write in London (1955) a first open declaration against the use of weapons of mass destruction by the governments of the world. This statement is known as the Russell-Einstein Manifesto.
• Another important event was the protests against the Vietnam War in the United States in the 1960s and against the arms race many of them led by important activists such as the couple formed by singer John Lennon and artist Yōko Ono.

21st century

War on Terror and Iraq War

The 21st century has been characterized primarily by globalization. In terms of peace, the most important action of the beginning of this century was the Earth Charter, an attempt to draft a Magna Carta or constitution of the planet where it is shown that the protection of the environment, human rights and peace are interdependent. and indivisible to all of us.

The Iraq War served as a trigger to revitalize a movement that had been off the front pages for some time. The demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq in 2003 were called simultaneously throughout the world, under the slogan No to war, being the first truly global calls in history. The demonstrations were especially relevant in the countries committed to the invasion (Australia, United States, Spain, Great Britain, Portugal, Poland, Italy). These were the first demonstrations called by internet and SMS, and the effectiveness of the new media was shown, since the world protest (or march for peace) began to be organized only one month before it was held. Local circumstances allowed them to last over time, especially in Great Britain, the United States, Spain and Italy, where they could serve as a rallying point against the governments in power, thus contributing to the electoral turnaround in Spain and Italy.

On February 15, 2003, the largest of the demonstrations took place. Millions of people took to the streets in many cities, led by Rome with 2 million demonstrators. It is worth noting the dance of figures, in terms of the number of protesters in the main cities of the countries whose governments supported the invasion. The difference between the official data given by the administrations and those given by the conveners was very large; each defending their interests. A clear example is Madrid, where the number of demonstrators was much higher than 660,000 officers, although it is very possible that they did not reach 2 million people according to the organizers, the real figure being an intermediate figure.

At the same time, the war against terrorism as it was formulated in its beginnings by the United States under the mandate of George W. Bush, generated a pacifist movement where there are both reformist groups of conservative pacifism, which do not question other social aspects, such as groups that believe in nonviolent action to effect radical changes in society

The spring of the Arab countries

The Arab Spring is an example of pacifism, as Arab citizens rose up against their rulers who had been clinging to power for years and organized peaceful and successful demonstrations such as in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen.^{[citation needed ]} In other countries such as Syria and Libya, demonstrations turned into civil war.

In the context of the Syrian civil war, Pope Francis led a day of prayer for peace in Vatican City, praying to God and Christ that foreign armed forces do not intervene in the Muslim country for peaceful reasons, even though implicitly asking Barack Obama.

Research for peace

In the nuclear age, pacifism has inspired the spread of a new academic discipline called “peace research”, which consists of acquiring the social knowledge necessary to make possible a peaceful resolution of conflicts. In its development and consolidation, as well as in the importance that pacifism has acquired in the period following the dropping of the Hiroshima bomb, scientists played a decisive role. On July 9, 1955, the philosopher Bertrand Russell, accompanied by Joseph Rotblat, a physicist who had participated in the Manhattan Project, presented in London at a press conference what would later be known as the "Russell-Einstein" Manifesto. This is the most brilliant and persuasive anti-war plea of the 20th century. In addition to Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, the document was also signed by Max Born, Nobel laureate in physics, P. W. Bridgman, Nobel laureate in physics, J. F. Joliot-Curie, Nobel laureate in chemistry, H.J. Muller, Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, Linus Pauling, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Hideki Yukawa, Nobel Prize in Physics, C.F. Powell, Professor of Physics at the University of London and Leopold Infeld, Professor of Physics at the University of Warsaw. Normally the "Russell-Einstein" Manifesto has been characterized as an appeal against the danger of nuclear weapons and the possibility that an atomic war would then break out between the US and the Soviet Union. But, being true that this was its central theme, reflections were also made in it that transcended said theme. In the communiqué of the call for the act of presentation of the manifesto, what its authors considered their fundamental proposal was highlighted. For example, it was said:

“[in the manifesto] it is made clear that neither side can claim victory in that war [nuclear war between the two blocs], and that there is a very real danger of extermination of the human race by dust and the rain of radioactive clouds. It suggests that neither the public nor the governments of the world are sufficiently aware of the danger. It is pointed out that a nuclear weapons ban agreement, while it might be helpful in de-escalating tension, would not offer a solution, since such weapons would undoubtedly be manufactured and used in a major war, despite previous agreements to the effect contrary. The only hope for humanity is to avoid war."

The body of the manifesto formulated the same idea but posed as a dilemma qualified, by the way, as “severe, horrible and inescapable”: “should we put an end to the human species or should humanity renounce war? ” Bertrand Russell, the main writer of the Manifesto, would expand on this reasoning in a later book entitled Nuclear War in the Face of Common Sense. Russell said in it:

“1st A large-scale nuclear war would be a complete disaster not only for the belligerents, but for the whole human race, and would not lead to any result that could be desired by a sane man.2nd Whenever it arises a small war, there is considerable danger of a big war arising out of it; and the danger would ultimately become almost a certainty in the course of many small wars. In spite of everything, in nuclear so that the belligerents had time to manufacture the prohibited weapons”.

From these three theses, Russell inferred the following conclusion: "if we are to escape unimaginable catastrophes, we must find a way to avoid all wars, large or small, whether deliberately nuclear or not." With this, war was presented for the first time as a species problem. Conceiving warlike activity in this way was radically different from the type of evaluations that had predominated until then among the main currents of thought. It was very far from the conception of war as a punishment or instrument of divinity, as a factor of social, economic and political progress, as an instrument for the liberation of peoples, as hygiene of the world, as a means to make the superiority of a race prevail. over the others or as a means or opportunity to defend or achieve socialism. On the contrary, pacifism was now presented as the main way to ensure the survival of humanity.

The end of the Cold War did not substantially alter the validity of these reflections, since it did not result in either nuclear disarmament or a renunciation of considering war as an acceptable political instrument. In fact, what the victorious powers of the Cold War did was, on the one hand, to revalidate the doctrine of nuclear deterrence and, on the other, to embark on an uninterrupted succession of military interventions – that is, “little wars”, as Russell would say - taking advantage of its momentary world hegemony.

Nonviolent resistance

Nonviolent resistance is a protest tactic related to civil disobedience that advocates the achievement of political, social and cultural change without the need to use violence as a political weapon.

In practice it uses symbolic protests and acts of non-cooperation in political and economic areas.

In general, the concept of non-violence seeks behaviors that are unusual in the manners and customs of the population. It consists of provoking attention through surprise. It is a way of affirming disagreement with a practice that is considered unfair and uses acts of omission (where socially accepted actions are refused or actions that are mandatory by law or regulations); acts of commission (when, on the contrary, actions contrary to custom or prohibited are carried out); or a combination of both.