Pacifism

[13] Gérin argued that the Spanish Nationalists were "comparable to an individual enemy" and the Republic's war effort was equivalent to the action of a domestic police force suppressing crime.

"If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well ... Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

Representative of the latter, was William Wilberforce who thought that strict limits should be imposed on British involvement in the French Revolutionary Wars based on Christian ideals of peace and brotherhood.

It became an active organization, holding regular weekly meetings, and producing literature which was spread as far as Gibraltar and Malta, describing the horrors of war and advocating pacificism on Christian grounds.

One Māori leader, Te Whiti-o-Rongomai, quickly became the leading figure in the movement, stating in a speech that "Though some, in darkness of heart, seeing their land ravished, might wish to take arms and kill the aggressors, I say it must not be.

There were highly publicized dissidents, some of whom were imprisoned for opposing draft laws, such as Eugene Debs in the U.S.[50] In Britain, the prominent activist Stephen Henry Hobhouse was jailed for refusing military service, citing his convictions as a "socialist and a Christian".

The ensuing debate among prominent internationalists modified Holt's plan to align it more closely with proposals offered in Great Britain by Viscount James Bryce, a former British ambassador to the United States.

After the immense loss of nearly ten million men to trench warfare,[55] a sweeping change of attitude toward militarism crashed over Europe, particularly in nations such as Great Britain, where many questioned its involvement in the war.

These organizations and movements attracted tens of thousands of Europeans, spanning most professions including "scientists, artists, musicians, politicians, clerks, students, activists and thinkers.

Novels and poems on the theme of the futility of war and the slaughter of the youth by old fools were published, including, Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington, Erich Remarque's translated All Quiet on the Western Front and Beverley Nichols's expose Cry Havoc.

The idea of collective security was also popular; instead of outright pacifism, the public generally exhibited a determination to stand up to aggression, but preferably with the use of economic sanctions and multilateral negotiations.

Economic sanctions were used against states that committed aggression, such as those against Italy when it invaded Abyssinia, but there was no will on the part of the principal League powers, Britain and France, to subordinate their interests to a multilateral process or to disarm at all themselves.

Shortly after the war ended, Simone Weil, despite having volunteered for service on the republican side, went on to publish The Iliad or the Poem of Force, a work that has been described as a pacifist manifesto.

Bertrand Russell argued that the necessity of defeating Adolf Hitler and the Nazis was a unique circumstance in which war was not the worst of the possible evils; he called his position relative pacifism.

Shortly before the outbreak of war, British writers such as E. M. Forster, Leonard Woolf, David Garnett and Storm Jameson all rejected their earlier pacifism and endorsed military action against Nazism.

"[79] After the end of the war, it was discovered that "The Black Book" or Sonderfahndungsliste G.B., a list of Britons to be arrested in the event of a successful German invasion of Britain, included three active pacifists: Vera Brittain, Sybil Thorndike and Aldous Huxley (who had left the country).

During World War II, pacifist leaders such as Dorothy Day and Ammon Hennacy of the Catholic Worker Movement urged young Americans not to enlist in military service.

Though these men had to either answer their conscription or face prison time, their status as conscientious objectors permitted them to refuse to take part in battle using weapons, and the military was forced to find a different use for them.

In Great Britain during World War II, the majority of the public did not approve of moral objection by soldiers but supported their right to abstain from direct combat.

[83] Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. led a civil rights movement in the U.S., employing Gandhian nonviolent resistance to repeal laws enforcing racial segregation and to work for integration of schools, businesses and government.

Other examples from this period include the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines led by Corazon Aquino and the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, with the broadly publicized "Tank Man" incident as its indelible image.

Included in this group is Robert L. Holmes, who illustrates that four principles of "moral personalism" can be utilized within the context of both nuclear war and terrorism in order to promote an ethically viable outcome.

[110][111][112][113] The Emmanuel Association teaches:[113][114] We feel bound explicitly to avow our unshaken persuasion that War is utterly incompatible with the plain precepts of our divine Lord and Law-giver, and with the whole spirit of the Gospel; and that no plea of necessity or policy, however urgent or peculiar, can avail to release either individuals or nations for the paramount allegiance which they owe to Him who hath said, "Love your enemies."

The United Pentecostal Church, the largest Apostolic/Oneness denomination, takes an official stand of conscientious objection: its Articles of Faith read, "We are constrained to declare against participating in combatant service in war, armed insurrection ... aiding or abetting in or the actual destruction of human life.

The classical texts of Hinduism devote numerous chapters discussing what people who practice the virtue of Ahimsa, can and must do when they are faced with war, violent threat or need to sentence someone convicted of a crime.

[157] As a global movement, anarcho-pacifism emerged shortly before World War II in the Netherlands, Great Britain and the United States and was a strong presence in the subsequent campaigns for nuclear disarmament.

[158] In France, anti-militarism appeared strongly in individualist anarchist circles as Émile Armand founded "Ligue Antimilitariste" in 1902 with Albert Libertad and George Mathias Paraf-Javal.

This idea, which is not necessarily dependent on acceptance of pacifist beliefs, is based on relying on nonviolent resistance against possible threats, whether external (such as invasion) or internal (such as coup d'état).

"[164] Adolf Hitler noted in his Second Book: "... Later, the attempt to adapt the living space to increased population turned into unmotivated wars of conquest, which in their very lack of motivation contained the germ of the subsequent reaction.

"[165] Hermann Göring described, during an interview at the Nuremberg Trials, how denouncing and outlawing pacifism was an important part of the Nazis' seizure of power: "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.