Anti-war Activism in the Information Age

The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

The Quakers are a pacifist denomination of Christianity, established in England in the seventeenth century. Quakers are notable throughout the history of British peace movements and the various Friends' Meeting Houses across the country are often familiar spaces of peace organising. Pacifism is written into the fabric of the Religious Society of Friends in the Peace Testimony. One of the earliest declarations of that testimony is found in a 1661 declaration to King Charles II, which read:

"We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatsoever. And this is our testimony to the whole world. The spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil and again to move unto it; and we do certainly know, and so testify to the world, that the spirit of Christ, which leads us into all Truth, will never move us to fight any war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdoms of this world." (Source: Wikipedia article on the 'Peace Testimony'; 11/08/06.)

More than a particular belief, the Peace Testimony is understood as a guide to action. The Quakers' action provides the basis of a relationship with other forms of activism that have become prominent in the wider protest milieux through opposing economic globalisation. In particular, the non-violent and direct forms of action and the desire to make decisions through consensus rather than competitive democracy offers some potential alignment with the autonomist sections of contemporary social movements. Furthermore, through their lobbying work both in the British parliament and through their permanent Geneva office that has had consultative status at the United Nations since 1948 means that the Quakers stand amongst the NGOs of the environment, development and peace lobbies that have grown enourmously in international governance since World War II.

Further Information on the Quakers

• Birkel, M.L. (2004) Silence and Witness. The Quaker Tradition.
• Smith, L. Pacifists in Action: The Experience of the Friends Ambulance Unit in the Second World War.
• Hoover, S. Answering Terror. Responses to War and Peace after 9/11/01.

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Stop the War Coalition UK

The Stop the War Coalition is one of the lead organisations in the UK movement opposing the US-led 'war on terror'. StWC was created on 21st September 2001, just ten days after that war was dramatically ignited, with the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) taking a lead in bringing together a range of campaigners and creating a durable working relationship with both CND and the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB). The StWC became particularly active in opposing the invasion of Afghanistan and has most recently mobilised against the Israeli invasion of the Lebannon with tens of thousands marching to demand an unconditional ceasefire on 5th August 2006. However, the peak of activity undoubtedly occured shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when millions marching in London joined some 10-12 million anti-war demonstrators across the world on 15th February. By this point dozens of local anti-war and pacifist groups across the UK had joined the national anti-war coalition, creating a large and effective mobilising network.

Further Information on StWC

• Murray, A. and German, L. (2005) Stop the War. The Story of Britain's Biggest Mass Movement.

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Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

In 1958 the short-lived National Council for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons Tests (NCANWT) became the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) with the aim of convincing the British government to take up unilateral nuclear disarmament, and utilising the mass demonstration as one means to do so. By the early 1960s CND was capable of mobilising up to 100,000 participants on demonstrations in central London leading one contemporary commentator to describe it as the “re-emergence of ideological politics in Great Britain.” (Steck, 1965)

Displaying some parallels with the most recent anti-war movements, the first wave of CND occurred at a time when a Tory opposition accepted the need for the welfare state and the Labour government was pushing for the production of new weapons, the defence of the remaining colonial lands and a closer relationship with the USA. Their chief political ambition was that the British government should unilaterally renounce its nuclear armaments: “Its simple cry - ‘Ban the Bomb’ - was moral and political in content, absolutist in tone, and, in consequence, productive of action.” (Steck, 1965)

In both its first and second waves of popularity - early 1960s and early 1980s - CND’s strategy was to win the Labour party to its cause, and through the Labour party, the government. Those attempts met a very mixed response. In 1960 the party leader, Hugh Gaitskell, declared that he would “fight, fight and fight again” to oppose unilateralism. Gaitskell won the argument, with the major trade unions reversing their nuclear policy after only a brief flirtation with unilateralism (Hinton, 1989). CND’s arguments did pass muster in the Labour party when its 1982 national conference accepted a policy of unilateral disarmament. But, the policy failed the test of a general election in which, following the Falklands war, foreign policy was high on the agenda. Election defeats under, first, Michael Foot, then Neil Kinnock, led Labour to abandon the policy in the late 1980s.

While the possibility of winning unilateralism through political parties seemed remote, feelings around the issue ran particularly high. The decade of détente had eroded, increasing cold war fears and the salience of images of nuclear holocaust. At the same time the public had become increasingly aware of the ‘limited nuclear war’ scenarios being devised by US military game theorists; the possibilities of first strike capabilities were again being discussed, weakening the apparent deterrence effect of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction. Additionally, Margaret Thatcher’s government had come to power with a policy of expansion of Britain’s nuclear capacity and a ‘civil defence policy’ that required local councils to build nuclear bunkers from which the country could be governed in the event of nuclear strikes. The dreadful and implausible, government-produced pamphlet Protect and Survive did nothing to calm nuclear fears and inspired E.P. Thomson to write the influential riposte, Protest and Survive.

With the failure of winning the government through the labour party, the larger part of CND, in connection with thinkers of the New Left, turned rather to standing independent candidates in parliamentary elections. While during both periods peace movements were associated with direct action the membership of CND consistently considered “Educational work and big public events ... to be of more importance.” (Byrne, 1987) Nevertheless, throughout both periods of activity CND regularly organised large demonstrations, sit downs and the annual march from Aldermaston to London.

Today, CND has gained in profile and membership through its involvement with the broader anti-war movement opposing the 'war on terror'. In addition, two major political developments seem to have increased its relevance. On the one hand, is the proposal to build a new generation of ten nuclear reactors to aid in shifting the energy dependence of the UK from oil. On the other, is the ageing nature of the UK's nuclear arsenal. If the UK is to remain a major nuclear power it will need to replace and update the Trident weapons that arm the small fleet of nuclear submarines. Both of these difficult, costly and high profile issues are the traditional grounds of CND action.

(The text on CND was abridged from Kevin Gillan's PhD thesis, Meaning in Movement.)

Further Information on CND

• Hudson, K. (2005) CND: Now More than Ever. The Story of the Peace Movement.
• Byrne, P. (1988) The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
• Ruddock, J. (1987) Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Scrapbook.
• Minion, J. (1983) The CND Story: the First 25 Years of CND in the Words of the People Involved.
• Flessati, V. (1997) Waking the sleeping giant: The story of Christian CND.
• Steck, H.J. (1965) “The Re-Emergence of Ideological Politics in Great Britain: The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament” in Western Political Quarterly 18:1.
• Byrne, P. (1987) “The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament: the Resilience of a Protest Group” in Parliamentary Affairs 40:4.
• Hinton, J. (1989) Protests and Visions. Peace Politics in Twentieth Century Britain.

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