Thought for the Week: Objection sustained

Guest editor David Boulton introduces The Friend's special edition commemorating one hundred years since the right to conscientious objection was recognised in the Military Service Act 1916

by David Boulton 26th February 2016

I am honoured to have been invited to guest-edit this special edition of the Friend, and I thank Ian Kirk-Smith and his hard-working team for helping me put it together.

I hear the muffled sound of head-scratching by some readers. Today, in our own time, millions of refugees are fleeing what some are calling ‘mini-world war three’. John Greenleaf Whittier’s ‘stormy clangour / Of wild war music’ is being played out in a deafening crescendo. So, why focus on a small group of peacemakers a hundred years ago who faced the music, defied the men of war and paid the price?