Soldiers Of Conscience

The First World War's appalling death toll and the need for a sense of equality of sacrifice on the home front led to Canada's first experience of overseas conscription. While historians have focused on resistance to enforced military service in Quebec, this has obscured the important role of those who saw military service as incompatible with their religious or ethical beliefs. Crisis of Conscience is the first and only book about the Canadian pacifists who refused to fight in the Great War. The experience of these conscientious objectors offers insight into evolving attitudes about the rights and responsibilities of citizenship during a key period of Canadian nation building.

Hundreds of Israeli soldiers, called up to take part in controversial campaigns like the 1982 invasion of Lebanon or policing duties in the Palestinian territories today, have refused orders. Many of these 'refuseniks' have faced prison sentences rather than take part in what they regard as an unjust occupation in defence of illegal Jewish settlements. In this inspirational book, Peretz Kidron, himself a refusenik, gives us the stories, experiences, viewpoints, even poetry, of these courageous conscripts who believe in their country, but not in its actions beyond its borders. We read about the cautious, even embarrassed, response of the authorities. And we see the wider implications of the philosophy of selective refusal - which is not the same thing as pacifism -- for conscientious citizens in every country where conscription still exists. Here is a real model for the peace movement in Israel and worldwide.

Norman Thomas and his brothers' upbringing prepared them for a life of service-but their calls to conscience threatened to tear them apart Conscience is Louisa Thomas's beautifully written account of the remarkable Thomas brothers at the turn of the twentieth century. At a time of trial, each brother struggled to understand his obligation to his country, family, and faith. Centered around the story of the eldest, Norman Thomas (later the six-time Socialist candidate for president), the book explores the difficult decisions the four brothers faced with the advent of World War I. Sons of a Presbyterian minister and grandsons of missionaries, they shared a rigorous moral upbringing, a Princeton education, and a faith in the era's spirit of hope. Two became soldiers. Ralph enlisted right away, heeding President Woodrow Wilson's call to fight for freedom. A captain in the Army Corps of Engineers, he was ultimately wounded in France. Arthur, the youngest, was less certain about the righteousness of the cause but sensitive to his obligation as a citizen-and like so many men eager to have a chance to prove himself. The other two were pacifists. Evan became a conscientious objector, protesting conscription; when the truce was signed on November 11, 1918, he was in solitary confinement. Norman left his ministry in the tenements of East Harlem, New York, and began down the course he would follow for the rest of his life, fighting for civil liberties, social justice, and greater equality, and against violence as a method of change. Conscience reveals the tension among responsibilities, beliefs, and desires, between ideas and actions-and, sometimes, between brothers. Conscience moves from the gothic buildings of Princeton to the tenements of New York City, from the West Wing of the White House to the battlefields of France, tracking how four young men navigated a period of great uncertainty and upheaval. A Thomas family member herself (Norman was Louisa's great grandfather), Thomas proposes that there is something we might recover from the brothers' debates about conscience: a way of talking about personal liberty and social obligation, about being true to oneself and to one another.

While objections in the 20th century have been well documented there has been little study of pacifist beliefs in America's early conflicts. This work seeks to remedy this by shedding new light on early US religious and military history.

The history of Japanese Americans in World War II does not record the stories of these resisters. It does not mention the War Department Special Organization, to which many of them were transferred, or the individuals who were tried and sentenced by military courts to long prison terms. The two hundred conscientious military resisters felt betrayed by the government and viewed the decision to imprison Japanese Americans as an immoral acquiescence to West Coast racism."--Pub. desc.