Historians Against the War (HAW)
Electronic Newsletter No. 1,
September, 2004
Contents
► HAW
Seeks Local Contacts and Regional Networks
► HAW at the AHA and OAH Annual
Meetings
► Hofstra’s “Day of Inquiry” as a Model for
Campus Organizing
► HAW Forum Examines How Much Is New in Bush
Policies
► HAW to Enter Friend of Court Brief for
Anti-War GI
► News and Suggestions from HAW Members
This Newsletter is aimed at providing members of
Historians Against the War (those who have signed the petition calling
for the restoration of cherished freedoms at home and an end to the US
occupation of Iraq) with a vehicle for sharing notes on activities that we are
involved in. To contribute, write to
Margaret Power, a member of the HAW Steering Committee, at power@iit.edu.
HAW Seeks
Local Contacts and Regional Networks
In
order to build and better coordinate our work and impact, HAW invites you to become
a local contact and/or part of a regional network.
As
a local contact or part of a regional network you could:
If
you would like more information or have questions or suggestions, please
contact Margaret Power (power@iit.edu),
David Applebaum (applebaum@rowan.edu), or Andor Skotnes (skotna@sage.edu).
<><><><><>
HAW at the AHA and OAH Annual Meetings
From its inception at the
annual meeting of the American Historical Association in January 2003,
Historians Against the War has worked within both the AHA and the Organization
of American Historians to support free speech and mobilize opposition to the
invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Seeking to avoid a
divisive debate, HAW chose not to press the professional associations to adopt
an explicitly anti-war position, but rather pursued a civil liberties
agenda. The success of this strategy
became apparent when the OAH adopted a HAW-sponsored resolution upholding free
speech at its annual convention in April 2003.
Meeting in Memphis just two weeks after the start of the bombing of
Iraq, the OAH business meeting unanimously adopted the resolution affirming
‘the sanctity of rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.’
Following up on this
endorsement, HAW brought a similar resolution before the AHA annual convention
in January 2004 affirming the necessity for “unfettered discussion,” “open
debate,” and “open access to government records and archives.” Again, the resolution passed unanimously.
On
the strength of these two victories, HAW proposed the creation of an OAH
committee to investigate threats to freedom of expression. At the OAH convention in Boston in March
2004, the Executive Board chaired by Jacquelyn Hall adopted the proposal, and
incoming President James Horton subsequently appointed HAW member David
Montgomery to chair the committee.
Meanwhile,
HAW has also been organizing opposition to the war within the professional
associations. We have solicited
signatures on our statement of opposition to the invasion of Iraq
(approximately 2200 signatures by March 2003) and our revised statement of
opposition to the occupation (approximately 1300 to date). In addition, we have handed out literature
at the conventions and sponsored a successful panel on war resistance at the
2004 OAH. We expect to conduct similar
activities in the future.
Alan Dawley (ADawley@tcnj.edu)
<><><><><>
Hofstra’s “Day of Inquiry” as a Model for Campus
Organizing
With
a Presidential election looming over the semester, a crucial task for antiwar
faculty is to devise campus events that go beyond traditional campaigns, raise
significant issues and that can galvanize student engagement.
Last
Spring faculty and students at Hofstra University stumbled upon an approach
that proved to be amazingly exciting and successful. It offers a model, which we are attempting to build upon this
fall and which might be useful at other institutions.
In
creating our “Day of Inquiry,” we were responding to two longstanding problems
that are not unique to our school: low attendance and a substrate of student
suspicion that radical faculty members are attempting to impose their
idiosyncratic views. On this occasion,
we found a format that involved over a thousand students and generated
remarkable good will and positive energy.
The
structure of the day was deceptively simple – a series of events from early
morning until late at night in which various aspects of the “Bush agenda”
(e.g., war in Iraq, effect of the Patriot Act on our school, reproductive
rights) were discussed and debated.
Some of these sessions involved outside speakers, others featured our
own faculty, while others were student directed.
There
were some fresh elements that made this day work especially well:
1. Support from the Provost’s Office. In an election year, our Administration
was willing to sponsor our program.
This gave us excellent access to campus spaces, free publicity and (most
crucially) the participation of numerous classes. While the Provost did not cancel courses for the day, his
endorsement meant that professors felt free to bring their students, even when
their subject matter had nothing to with contemporary politics. In exchange for the Administration’s
support, organizers accepted the requirement that events be balanced.
2. Planning Process that Involved Students
and Faculty. From the beginning
planning for the day included progressive faculty and representatives from
student organizations. This
collaboration was immensely productive and yielded a range of ideas that were
different from what faculty might have generated on their own. Once the project was launched, we invited
representatives from groups we do not ordinarily work with – such as the Young
Republicans, Hillel, and ROTC to be part of the process.
3. Reaching Out to ROTC. From early on, we contacted the ROTC office
on our campus and engaged the people there in our planning. Liberal arts faculty had never connected to
these folks and there were many negative stereotypes on both sides. After serious discussion, the officers at
ROTC agreed to participate and encouraged all of their students become
involved. Incredibly, most of us were
unaware of how many of our students were already in Iraq and Afghanistan or
were scheduled to go.
4. Diversity of Opinion. Although progressive faculty had a long
history of inviting more conservative colleagues to participate in forums, most
have been unwilling to debate. This
time we recognized from the beginning that if we wanted different perspectives,
we needed to involve more conservative students and speakers from off the
campus. We received an unexpected
boost, when one of our alumni, who was serving as Paul Bremer’s Senior Press
Advisor in Iraq, agreed to participate.
The result was a series of sometimes intense, riveting debates
(including an unprecedented joint session arranged by the Muslim Students
Association and Hillel) that made students as well as faculty eager to
continue.
5. Starting the Day With Personal
Experience. By last spring, it had
become apparent that in addition to ROTC, many of our students had family or
friends that were serving in Iraq. We
began the day with an open forum, run by our chaplain, that was specifically
geared to those who felt a personal connection to the war. This included antiwar activists as well as
those involved with servicemen and women.
By encouraging everyone to share thoughts and experiences in a
non-threatening fashion, the days’ deliberations were grounded in a certain
human reality. It also initiated a mood
of exchange and reflection that set a constructive tone for the subsequent
sessions.
While
there were plenty of rough edges and glitches throughout the day, for many
students and faculty it was our most rewarding experience of campus life, We
are hoping to continue the momentum from last year, under the rubric of
“Hofstra Votes.” Along with a
large-scale registration effort, we are planning a second “Day of Inquiry” that
taps some of the energy created by a Presidential contest, but which focuses on
the substantive issues that will remain no matter which candidate wins in
November.
Carolyn
Eisenberg (hiscze@aol.com)
<><><><><>
HAW Forum Examines How Much Is New in Bush
Policies
To
kick off the weekend of the Republican National Convention, HAW organized a
Town Hall Meeting of Historians on Saturday, August 28, to discuss how far to
the right the Bush Administration has moved in its global war on terror. Ellen Schrecker of Yeshiva University,
Renate Bridenthal of Brooklyn College (emerita), Thomas Bender of NYU, and
Andrew Bacevich of Boston University considered the question: Have we broken with the mainstream American
past?
While
the panelists differed on whether or not the Bush administration represents a
genuine departure from the past, they all agreed that it is pushing America in
the wrong direction. Perhaps the most
surprising response was from Bacevich, a self-described conservative and West
Point graduate, who argued that the Bush administration’s foreign policy is an
“arrogant” and “stupid” version of earlier attempts to expand the American
empire. The eminent scholar of U.S.
foreign policy confessed that he voted for Bush, but is distressed by the
administration’s muscular unilateralism, preventative war and sheer lack of
vision. However, Bacevich cautioned
that the Bush administration’s allegiance to the notion that the U.S. is a
benevolent superpower with the responsibility to transform the international
order is integral to much of American history, including the Clinton Doctrine.
Schrecker
drew our attention to parallels on the home front. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s restriction of civil liberties
has deep roots in American history; one such predecessor is A. Mitchell
Palmer’s raids following the First World War.
Bender moved effortlessly through these themes, reminding the audience
that the U.S. has long restricted civil liberties and waged wars for empire
based on false pretexts, such as the Mexican War in 1846 and the Spanish
American War of 1898. The Bush regime
was the most recent representative of what Bender characterized as very deep
and “dark” traditions in U.S. history, signaling a certain continuity, but one
that is especially dangerous and in need of changing.
Renate Bridenthal’s call to differentiate between
sterile comparisons on the one hand and analogies that can clarify our
understanding of what is happening, on the other, was most helpful. Bridenthal’s analogy between Medieval Germany and current
US policy, especially the trends toward privatization of imperial warfare was
sharply drawn and clearly developed. The theme was repeated several
times as moderator Van Gosse thought out loud about whether the French
Revolution or the Russian Revolution, the Jacobins or the Bolsheviks, 1789 or
1917 offered pertinent and powerful analogies for understanding the current crisis
and charting the direction of HAW. The
conversation comfortably and coherently navigated through a variety of topics,
from right-wing “backlash” to the Vietnam syndrome to the degree to which the
U.S. foreign policy has become militarized.
The
meeting lived up to its ambitious claim of harking back to Town Hall meetings
of the past, with the audience offering engaging comments and challenging
queries. Surely, the Bush
administration has pushed the nation to the “right,” and such dialogues are
essential in sorting out how far we have moved. The following day the Historians against the War led a contingent
of roughly 100 people, who joined hundreds of thousands of Americans in the
streets on NYC to protest the Bush administration’s right-wing agenda. Perhaps steering committee member Ben
Alpers, who came all the way from Oklahoma, best captures HAW’s role in
mobilizing against a repressive administration: “Out of the archives and into
the streets!!”
The Town Meeting was recorded by WNYC and a West
Coast Pacifica affiliate, and by HAW.
HAW is making a two-CD recording of the event available for $10,
post-paid, or free if you can get it on the radio or otherwise use it as a
presentation. Please, contact Andor
Skotnes at skotna@sage.edu. We are also
planning to put audio segments of the Town Meeting on our website.
Buoyed
by the success of this event with its distinctively non-academic format of open
discussion, we are urging HAW members to stage their own town meetings on this
question before the November election.
It’s a great way to get people thinking about history, about right-wing
politics and historical analogies.
We’ll provide you with an outline of questions, a how-to for the
town-meeting format, and a template of our color flyer, into which you can plug
your local info. If you can pay for
transportation, we’ll even attempt to arrange to have one of the speakers from
the New York event, or a HAW Steering Committee member, participate. For assistance on organizing a HAW town
meeting, contact Van Gosse at van.gosse@fandm.edu.
Carl
Mirra (Carl Mirra@aol.com)
In
addition, HAW Co-Chair Van Gosse offers a personal
perspective on the historical significance of the August 29 March, organized by
United for Peace and Justice, in his essay “August 29, 2004: This Is What
History Looks Like.” In June 2003,
Gosse was elected as a representative of HAW to the UFPJ Steering
Committee. To read this article, go to http://www.historiansagainstwar.org/van29aug04.html
<><><><><>
HAW
to Enter Friend of the Court Brief for Anti-War GI
Sergeant
Camilo Mejia served in Iraq from March to October 2003 as a squad leader. At the end of a two-week leave in the States
in October, he went underground. On March
15, 2004, Mejia declared at a press conference that he would apply for
Conscientious Objector status and would refuse to return to Iraq. Later that day he turned himself in. Mejia was tried for desertion in Fort
Stewart, Georgia. Attorney Louis Font
represented him. On the eve of trial,
the Army filed a so-called “motion in limine” which contended that Mejia should
not be permitted to raise the issue of the legality of the war, because this
was a “political question,” nor “irrelevant issues” such as his status as a
conscientious objector and the dictates of his conscience.
After
a three-day trial, on May 21 Mejia was convicted and given the maximum sentence
of a year in prison, demotion to the rank of Private, and a bad conduct
discharge. He is appealing to the
Army’s court of appeals.
HAW’S Argument
Military
regulations concerning conscientious objection require the objector to oppose
“war in any form.”
HAW
will argue that the Nuremburg principles, on the basis of which leading Nazis
were tried and executed, require soldiers to refuse to commit war crimes
whether or not they object to war in any form.
HAW will assert that the court should have considered Mejia’s perception
that he was ordered to commit war crimes in Iraq and reasonably believed the
same situation would recur if he returned.
The
principal drafters of HAW’s brief are Staughton Lynd, Berenice Carroll, and
Nicholas Turse. It is hoped that
organizations that assist and counsel soldiers may wish to join in signing the
finished product.
Staughton
Lynd (SALynd@aol.com)
<><><><><>
HAW invites
you to submit news and suggestions from your area that you would like to share
with other members. Let members of HAW
know what you have done that has worked, or has not worked. Paul Buhle, a member of the HAW Steering
Committee, initiates this column with some reflections on how to build HAW and
an example of some of the activities he participated in organizing at Brown
University.
The best thing would be for HAW members to form
local chapters (see Local Contacts/Regional Networks article), formally or
informally, of antiwar profs and grad students, meet occasionally and plan a lecture
or political/scholarly event at least once each semester. In most places, however, even the historians
(including those in other departments, such as Black Studies, American Studies,
etc. who think of themselves as “historians”) who signed HAW appeals may not be
especially willing to add another meeting to their agendas, let alone organize
their colleagues.
The next-best thing is to piggy-back and/or
find a way to co-sponsor events that can call some attention to HAW. This may be especially difficult but is
especially important because the fall-off of antiwar campus groups after the
beginning of the war has never seen much of an organized rebound, even when
antiwar sentiment has deepened and made new openings to the vets, the families
of soldiers more possible.
What are those local events? Here are a few examples from last academic
year and the approaching academic year at Brown: a successful showing of The Battle of Algiers, introduced by a
French grad student (after this showing, the film series died along with the
faculty peace group); an antiwar poetry read-in with a jazz trio and a
particular historical/cultural bent, featuring our poet-in-residence, Robert
Creeley; a highly successful student-originated exhibit, “Underground Rhode
Island,” with a series of public events, posing alternative culture past and
present against official culture and politics; and upcoming this year, a
centenary IWW exhibit/event with art and culture focusing on the need for
transnationalism-from-below (anyone interested in The Wobbly Traveling Show,
March-December ‘05, should contact me). The possibility of working with antiwar
labor groups also has potential, thanks to USLAW.
I would also like to envision, for my campus or
others, a HAW symposium called something like ‘The Antiwar Historian,” with
some current prominent person (like Howard Zinn) but also comments on, for
example, William Appleman Williams and E. P. Thompson. This would be important, at least, for
graduate students and young Profs, but could be designed to attract a broader
audience.
Nothing really substitutes for antiwar activities
of all kinds. But in an extended moment
when the turnout dwindles, we need creative ways to repose “history” beyond the
classrooms, public history kicked up to a new degree. In my experience, that usually comes across best through, or at
least accompanied by, a cultural expression of some kind. To find and work with allies of various
kinds who can use our help is the key.
There’s no contradiction in finding and building very different programs
together with, for instance, hipsters of various ages, the Middle East Peace
folks, the campus ministry and the emerging local Latino neighborhood
associations. Every one of them-and a
lot of others--has a historical antiwar connection of value and potential.
Paul Buhle
(Paul_Buhle@Brown.edu)
<><><><><>
Publications #1 and #2
already exist – see the home page of the HAW web site, historiansagainstwar.org – while the others are in the works or are under contemplation.
Publication
# 1 Brief Bibliography of English
Languages Sources and Studies on the Middle East & Muslim South Asia,
by Stuart Schaar and Marvin Gettleman (first edition December 2003; second edition,
March, 2004). To be updated
periodically.
Publication
# 2 We Won’t Go: Narratives of Resistance
to World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the U.S.-Iraqi War of
1990-1991, and the Current Iraq War, edited by Staughton Lynd
Publication
# 3 Antiwar Activity and the American
Historical Profession, 1969 and 2003-4, by Marvin Gettleman and Jesse
Lemisch
Publication
# 4 The I-word: A Critique of Michael
Walzer, by HAW’s SC & Advisory Group on Foreign Policy.
Publication
#5 Let History Judge; Historians Against
the War’s Statement On the War in Iraq, drafted by Alan Dawley and Van
Gosse. Available on our web site.
Publication
# 6 Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism,
by Brian Klug and Gidon D. Remba.
Publication
# 7 A Guide to the War in Iraq, by
Marvin Gettleman and Stuart Schaar.
Publication
# 8 Torture and the U.S. State.. This pamphlet debunks the administration’s
spin on torture by showing that Abu Ghraib is not an aberration. Articles examine the U.S. government’s use
of torture in Viet Nam, the U.S. prison system, and Latin America, among
others.
Publication
# 9 The Patriot Act and Related policies of the Bush administration – their
relevance for historians and other academics: a reworking (by Ellen Schrecker?)
of material by Rogers Smith (scheduled for RHR), Elaine Scarry (recently in the
Boston Review) and the AAUP’s Committee A report on Academic Freedom,
published in Academe,
November-December 2003
Marv Gettleman (marvget@earthlink.net)