In 1851 Victor Hugo addressed the Peace Congress in Paris and prophesied that universal peace is inevitable when the nations are linked together by the Gospel that substitutes mediation for war. He proclaimed that the law of God is not war, but peace. He noted that before France was united, local regions fought each other often, and he predicted that the ballot box would unite the nations as well. The great novelist spoke prophetically when he said,
A day will come when there will be no more battlefields,
but markets opening to commerce and minds opening to ideas.
A day will come when the bullets and bombs
are replaced by votes, by universal suffrage,
by the venerable arbitration of a great supreme senate
which will be to Europe what Parliament is to England,
the Diet to Germany, and the Legislative Assembly to France.
A day will come when a cannon will be a museum-piece,
as instruments of torture are today.
And we will be amazed to think that these things once existed!
A day will come when we shall see those two immense groups,
the United States of America and the United States of Europe,
stretching out their hands across the sea,
exchanging their products, their arts, their works of genius,
clearing up the globe, making deserts fruitful,
ameliorating creation under the eyes of the Creator,
and joining together to reap the well-being of all.
This speech and his public opposition to the oppression of
the poor provoked Napoleon III into exiling Hugo. The next year
Hugo wrote that one can resist the invasion of armies but not
the power of ideas whose time has come.
What the world needs now more than ever is guidance for establishing
lasting peace with justice. The enormous military expenditures
of the Cold War were only reduced substantially in the former
Soviet states, and in recent years United States President George
W. Bush has promoted large increases in military spending and
war activities. The threat of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)
between two superpowers has given way to more likely dangers of
nuclear weapons being used by terrorists and nations fighting
each other. In spite of the Cold War ending, the problems of war
and peace have increased, and enough weapons of mass destruction
(nuclear, biological, and chemical) exist to threaten not only
millions of people but could even bring about the extinction of
the human species. Much has been written about these problems
of nuclear weapons, military intervention, economic burdens, and
terrorism; but still only a few voices in the wilderness are crying
out for the moral imperatives of disarmament, world justice through
effective international law, and federal democracy for the whole
world. Ultimately we must discover and use nonviolence in applying
these deeper and more enduring solutions. Understanding permanent
solutions to our dangerous dilemma gives an invaluable perspective
and encouragement toward facing this horrendous situation.
The philosophy of peacemaking has been evolving through the centuries
and can be found in all the great cultures of the world. Guides
to peace and justice have practiced and taught humans how we can
live and work together for the safety and good of all. Ancient
sages and founders of religions, such as Lao-zi, Confucius, Mahavira,
Buddha, Pythagoras, Jesus, Nanak, and Baha'u'llah have given humanity
profound ideas. Their messages have been carried by peacemakers
such as Mo-zi, Mencius, early Christians, Sufis, Francesco of
Assisi, Chaucer, Erasmus, George Fox, and many others. Principles
of justice through international law have been taught by Dante,
Vitoria, Crucé, Grotius, Wolff, Vattel, Penn, Rousseau,
Bentham, Kant, and Emerson. Methods of nonviolent action for social
transformation have been passed directly from Thoreau to Tolstoy
to Gandhi to Martin Luther King and a growing peace movement throughout
the world.
During the twentieth century when more than a hundred million
people died in wars, evolving experiments with limited world government
were attempted in the League of Nations and the United Nations;
but recent proposals for more effective world law and disarmament,
such as the Clark-Sohn plan, have not yet been implemented. Great
philosophers and pacifists such as Einstein, Schweitzer, Russell,
and Muste have protested nuclear weapons and called for democratic
international organization for peace with justice. The useless
tragedy of the Vietnam War stimulated the first peace movement
that was able to stop a major war. Women demonstrated the persistence
of a nonviolent movement in gaining the vote. The modern feminist
movement has increased people's awareness of the role of women
in bringing balance and peace to society. In the 1980s a movement
opposed to nuclear technology and military intervention grew and
continues its quest for a nonviolent and nuclear-free world. Yet
the dependence on polluting fossil fuels and conflict over them
and precious fresh water threaten devastating wars and will continue
to do so until humanity learns to solve its resource needs peacefully.
The History of Peace is the story of the philosophical
insights into the psychological, social, political, and economic
factors of war and peace, the root causes of war, and the practical
methods for transforming our society into a peaceful and just
world.
Guides to Peace and Justice from Ancient Sages to the Suffragettes is published as a book. For ordering information, please click here.