It is fitting that the pacifist be bold in the knowledge that he
or she (however unworthy) is with the prophets, and his or her inquisitors
(however worthy) are speaking for the dead past out of which humankind
is creeping. It is not right that the advocates of love should apologize
or flinch.
Handbook for Conscientious Objectors Eighth Edition, 1965
The National Registry for Conscientious Objection
The
National Registry for Conscientious Objection was created at The
Peace Abbey following the war in the Persian Gulf in early 1991.
The National Registry provides men and women of all ages with an
opportunity to register their objection to personal, national, and
international violence.
As a concept, conscientious objection was co-opted by the military
who gave itself the power to grant or withhold official status as
a "C.O." The National Registry reclaims the notion of conscientious
objection, and returns it to its original meaning as a way of life
(rather than a military or governmental designation). Conscientious
objection is not the property of generals, to be handed out or withheld
according to the judgment of draft boards. Objection to violence
and courage of conscience are characteristics of a life committed
to peace.
The National Registry is a national campaign to promote peacemaking
as a practical ideal: a way of living in the present that represents
our best hope for the future. It seeks to inspire peace and justice
in society by inviting peacemakers everywhere to "register" their
conscientious objection to violence, and in so doing, to share with
others their commitment to a peaceful world.
The intent of The National Registry for Conscientious Objection
is to emphasize one's absolute dedication to peaceful living and
to peaceful resolution of conflict. It is only by striving for perfection
that we approach perfection. Likewise, it is only by committing
ourselves absolutely to peaceful living that peace will in fact
prevail, in our lives and on the planet.
STATE RADIO MUSIC VIDEO ON CAMILO MEJIA WHO FOUND SUPPORT AND SANCTUARY AT THE PEACE ABBEY. HIS
OFFICIAL DOCUMENT ON CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION IS HELD AT THE ABBEY.
Signing the Registry
We welcome you to The Peace Abbey to sign The
National Registry for Conscientious Objection in person,
and join us in this initiative for peace. Or you can download the
National Registry
form and send the signed original back to The Peace Abbey, Two
North Main Street, Sherborn, MA. 01770. We encourage you to keep
a copy for your personal records, perhaps framed and displayed as
a sign of your commitment to peace. If you would like to have a
form that several individuals can sign, download the National
Registry Page for Groups below.
Conscientious Objector Statement By Chris King, Attender, Wellesley MA Monthly
Meeting
When it came time to prepare a statement for my draft board
I was told by draft counselors that the Board members often asked
the question, "If someone invaded your home and threatened your
family, would defend them? Would you use a weapon to stop the aggressor?"
I could see how some people would assume that defending your
house against a thief or murderer would be the "same thing" as defending
your nation against an enemy.
I had also played football and other aggressive sports. I could
see how some people might think that a team engaged in a rough game
might be the "same thing" as an army engaged in combat.
I respected the role that police have in protecting communities
and their need to carry and use weapons. I could see how some people
might see a police force as the "same thing" as an army.
I needed to clarify for myself the real difference between joining
an army and defending against attackers, playing rough team sports
and working on a police force.
After some thought I came to these conclusions:
An army is different from a defender, a sportsman, or a police
officer because a soldier is carefully trained with one aim in mind,
to kill other people. None of the other activities has as its specific
intention the desire to end the life of another human being. A defender
or a well-trained police officer -reluctantly- uses a weapon. In
addition, the process of learning to be a soldier is a 'dehumanizing
process'. A young person changes his or her appearance to lose individuality.
The uniform depersonalizes the person. The soldier is rigorously
taught to respect and fear commanding officers more than the enemy.
Many of his or her civil rights are removed. Above all, other human
beings are reduced in training to "targets" so that the soldier
can eliminate them impersonally.
So my conclusion was that I could not serve in the military
not only because it would deliberately teach me to become a tool
for ending other human lives. It would also reduce me to less than
human and blunt or even eliminate the very compassionate perception
I have as a thinking, caring individual. It was also discriminatory
in that it stated that some people were to be protected and defended
and others killed "with extreme prejudice." I could not willingly
cooperate with a process, which deliberately sought to train out
of me my deep seeded moral and religious belief that killing another
human is wrong.
To Whom It May Concern:
"I have to go because if I don't, someone else
will have to go in my place."
--- Jeffery Gurvitz, a U.S soldier killed in Vietnam in '68.)
As a conscientious objector or war resister, have you given any
thought to who might have gone in your place, and whether his or
her name is on the wall at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington
and in the book at the Abbey chapel?
There is yet another level of understanding the term "unknown soldier"
when one considers that, though they never had to go to Vietnam
and kill anyone, a soldier may, indeed, have been killed because
he or she went in your place. While most people may not be naturally
drawn to concern themselves with such matters, it is our conscientious
duty as pacifists to do no less.
The name of this "unknown soldier" may be entered in the Vietnam
Book at the Abbey chapel which includes the names of 58,000 Americans
killed in Vietnam. There is no way of knowing who went in your place,
and if he or she made it home alive.
Only God knows.
--- Lewis Randa, discharged from the military as a conscientious
objector in 1971.)
Brief History of American
Pacifism
Conscientious objection has a unique place in United States history.
In fact, the tradition of refusing military service - and the recognition
of that right - can be traced back to America's founding fathers,
some of whom were pacifists fleeing oppression for their beliefs
in Europe. Several of the original colonies, including Pennsylvania,
Delaware and New Jersey, were founded by the Quaker pacifist William
Penn. The framers of the U.S. Constitution even considered including
an exemption from military service for conscientious objectors in
the Second Amendment. This clause was omitted because they did not
envision the need for creating a standing army. At the onset of
the Revolutionary War, George Washington issued a draft order, which
was a call to "all young men of suitable age to be drafted, except
those with conscientious scruples against war.”
During the American Civil War, the conscription law of the North
provided the opportunity for religious objectors and others to buy
their way out of the draft. Those who refused or could not afford
that option were treated harshly under military law. Four thousand
men served in the military as unarmed legal conscientious objectors
(COs).
World War I ushered in the first draft since the Civil War, and
policies that were even less tolerant of conscientious objectors.
Seventeen draft resisters died of mistreatment in Alcatraz Prison
during World War I.
In World War II, a total of nearly 43,000 Americans refused to fight
for reasons of conscience: 12,000 served in Civilian Public Service,
6,000 went to prison and 25,000 served in the military as noncombatants.
During the Vietnam War more than 170,000 men were officially recognized
as conscientious objectors. Thousands of other young men resisted
by burning their draft cards, serving jail sentences or leaving
the country. Though the military is currently an all-volunteer organization,
when the Gulf War broke out in 1991, 2,500 men and women volunteers
serving in the Armed Forces refused to serve in Saudi Arabia on
the basis of conscience. While draft opposition has been an individual
decision made by a minority in all U.S. wars, public opposition
to wars such as the War of 1812, the Mexican War, World War I and
the Vietnam War sparked mass movements that reached far beyond men
of draft age.
POST-WAR CONTRIBUTIONS
A new movement, termed by its adherents ‘radical pacifism’ would
emerge . . . Far from feeling despondent about the overwhelming
popular support for the war effort in the United States, radical
pacifists found the shared resistance and the sense of emerging
movement in their distinct camp and prison communities exhilarating.
--James Tracy, historian The story of WWII conscientious objectors
did not end when the war was over. Pioneers of nonviolent protest,
many of the COs' principles would bear fruit in the activism of
the decades that followed. COs would also become key leaders in
the civil rights, anti-Vietnam, anti-apartheid and other social
justice movements of the late 20th century.
CO Profiles
The son of a well-to-do Bostonian, David Dellinger rejected
his comfortable background when he walked out of Yale during the
Depression to follow the path of Francis of Assisi. Dellinger lived
among the poor, was among the first young men in America to refuse
the draft in 1940 and was jailed twice for his refusal. He held
hunger strikes in prison that eventually integrated the federal
prison system and was bloodied introducing Gandhi's principles of
nonviolence to the political street struggles against the Vietnam
War. In 1968 he held the world spellbound with his cry "the whole
world is watching," referring to the media coverage of the Chicago
police riot. During the trial of the Chicago Eight, Dellinger and
his co-defendants turned the tables on their accusers and put the
government on trial. He is author of many books including his autobiography,
From Yale to Jail: The Life of a Dissenter. Dellinger lives in Montpelier,
Vermont with his wife Elizabeth Peterson.
Quaker Stephen G. Cary was director of a CPS camp during
the war, and commissioner for European Relief for the American Friends
Service Committee (AFSC) after World War II. The Quakers received
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947 for that work. Since those years,
he has served the organization in many capacities, including 12
years as chairperson of the AFSC Board of Directors and Corporation.
He is now retired as President of Haverford College and lives in
Haverford, Pennsylvania.
The son of a New Jersey dentist, African American CO Bill Sutherland
has lived in Africa for the past five decades, tirelessly recording
and participating in efforts for social change on both continents.
A co-founder of Americans for South African Resistance, The American
Committee on Africa, and World Peace Brigades, he served as a special
assistant to the Sixth Pan-African Congress in Tanzania, and has
been fostering Pan-African relations for all of his adult life.
His recent book, Guns and Gandhi in Africa: Pan African Insights
into Non Violence, Armed Struggle and Liberation in Africa, documents
his work on that continent.
Carlos Cortez has been a construction laborer, factory worker,
janitor, journalist, salesman, curator, printmaker and poet. He
is actively involved in Chicago's Mexican community. Mr. Cortez
first pursued printmaking after he became involved with the International
Workers of the World, for whom he drew cartoons and created posters.
His political works include homages to United Farm Workers' leader
Cesar Chavez.
Asa Watkins was born a Presbyterian and became a Quaker
after his CPS experience. He was among the first COs to serve in
a mental hospital working as an attendant in the Virginia State
Hospital in Williamsburg, where he was a reformer of the state mental
health system. Watkins was a lifetime activist and artist who taught
special education for decades. Watkins passed away in June 2001.
To view more artwork by Asa Watkins, go to the gallery.
George Houser was one of the Union Eight seminarians who
were the first public draft resisters in the United States. He was
a founder of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) with James Farmer
and Bayard Rustin during the war. In 1947 he and Rustin organized
the first Freedom Ride for integration of interstate buses, the
Journey of Reconciliation. Houser co-founded the first American
organization opposed to South African apartheid with Bill Sutherland.
Houser has served in many capacities in the Fellowship of Reconciliation,
from youth secretary to executive director. He and his wife Jean
live in an intentional community in Pomona, NY.
COs Responses to
the September 11th terrorist attacks
Even though people may object to what their government is doing,
that can be patriotic, too. A person can be a patriot who believes
that we’re doing the wrong thing, my country should be doing something
else. That should not be criticized, but should be understood as
part of the democratic function. --Walter Cronkite, CBS News, October
7, 2001
George Houser: I have not
changed my general approach. I have matured and know what the possibilities
are and the limitation on non-violence. I know we're not going to
create a non-violent world suddenly. The reaction in the U.S. is
a good example and the reaction around the world - there is hysteria
against hysteria. There is a war-like atmosphere in the U.S. without
a war situation. There is bombing without opposition. Who is the
U.S. fighting? It is a ghost - eliminate Bin Laden and it won't
alter the situation. The anger is still there. Look at Israel and
Palestine, going on so long and continuing, responding to violence
with violence. It never ends - retaliation vs. retaliation - that's
what we are getting into. There is no end to it. The pacifist position
is a witness position - not something that will sweep over the world
-a loving, reconciling approach but it can get you crucified. Gandhi
and MLK were assassinated; Christ was crucified. Ultimately you
have to be prepared for that if you stand for an ideal. Rather than
non-violence taking over the world, I believe in a non-violence
force. I don't believe very simply that it will take over the world.
If you take that position you have to be prepared to suffer for
it.
Steve Cary: We have every
right to track down the culprits, but military action is only going
to increase hatred. We can make our great country greater by lessening
hatred in the world. I would focus on reassessment of Mid-East policy.
I would greatly increase aid to the underdeveloped world where there
is so much poverty. We need to cooperate on global issues and make
far more generous use of our tremendous wealth for the benefit of
the human family. From my personal perspective, if I were draft
age today, I probably wouldn't accept alternative service as I did
in 1941. I didn't feel I could accept prison in 1941. At age 86,
I think I could go to jail with a better spirit. Sam Yoder I live
in a community that is predominantly Mennonite and Amish. A few
weeks ago there was a letter to the local newspaper that was signed
by 2100 people. It expressed horror at the events in New York and
urged caution, something other than being vengeful. It is different
now than with Pearl Harbor. People were much more inclined to fight
then - we were in a real war. It is awful that 6000 people died.
I'm fearful that the rhetoric is a little scary. I'm afraid that
one of those missiles is going to kill a lot of innocent people.
If you ask me what we should do now, I just don't know. We need
to be concerned with peace and justice. In World War II, we talked
about peace; we didn't use the word justice very much. Nowadays
in our church we talk about justice.
David Dellinger: We mourn the victims
and express our solidarity with their wives, husbands, children,
friends and relatives. We have to put this destructive terrorism
into a real perspective, senseless as its horrors are. Killing innocent
civilians in other countries would do no justice to those killed
in this country, and will not bring them back to life. Launching
a war that destabilizes regions or leads to a further escalation
of violence would be a grave mistake with unforeseen consequences.
It would not increase our safety and might increase the likelihood
of more terrorist attacks. Instead we should strengthen the efforts
to strengthen non-violence throughout the world.