Pacifism in deed
Misuse of the word 'pacifism' in mainstream media criticised
Pacifist campaigners have criticised parts of the media for repeatedly misusing the word ‘pacifism’. Members of the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) say that commentators frequently equate pacifism with passivity, giving up or ‘doing nothing’.
‘Pacifism is a militant creed and not a sit-in-an-armchair-and-fret creed,’ said the PPU’s Albert Beale. He told the Friend that some people ‘do not have any conception of any form of struggle other than armed struggle’. He is now writing to letters pages whenever he sees the word ‘pacifism’ misused in a newspaper. He encouraged other pacifists to do likewise.
Recent examples include the use of the word ‘pacifist appeaser’ by columnist Simon Jenkins in the Guardian. The PPU point out that references to the 1930s often confuse pacifism with the appeasement of Hitler.
‘The biggest appeasers of Hitler were the British industrialists who were selling him weapons,’ said Albert Beale, ‘Plenty of British anti-militarists were opposing Hitler and working with their fellow pacifists in Germany’.
He said that pacifism could include ‘not just withdrawing co-operation from the war machine but literally putting a spanner in the works’. He insisted that ‘sabotaging a military facility is a form of nonviolent struggle’.
