[Peace-discuss] Sous les pavés, la plage?

[C. G. Estabrook]

Difficult question.  The first premier of the People's Republic of China in the 
1950s, Zhou Enlai, when asked his opinion of the 1789 French Revolution, is 
supposed to have said, "It's too soon to tell."

I think the traditional Just War theory (jus ad bellum, jus in bello: see 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war>) is correct, understood to mean that an 
oppressed or invaded people may take up arms under some conditions. (But, e.g., 
the US demand for unconditional surrender in WWII was clearly unjust.)

I doubt your question can be answered in the abstract.  As a practical matter, 
in dealing with angry people in the streets, unless overcome by hypocrisy I 
would hope to have belonged to the anti-war party in Boston in 1775, in Paris in 
1789 (at least to the extent Tom Paine was), in Washington in 1860, etc.

The only congressional representative to vote against US entry into both World 
War I and World War II, Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973) of Montana, asked at the 
end of her life if she had any regrets, said, "I wish I'd been nastier." She 
meant in opposition to war, and that may imply that angry people should be in 
the streets. --CGE


John W. wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 8:53 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu 
> <mailto:galliher at uiuc.edu>> wrote:
> 
> [A topic discussed on tonight's News from Neptune/TV Ed. (ch. 6 at 7pm and
> soon online) but few other places in US media. I was in Latvia several years
> ago, and what's described here is hard to imagine. --CGE]
> 
> 
> What's your opinion of the EFFICACY of angry people in the streets, Carl?
> Historically, does this type of protest, more often than not, lead to
> positive change for ordinary people?  Or is it just a venting of (certainly
> in some cases legitimate) emotion, which could just as easily lead to civil
> war and genocide?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Governments across Europe tremble as angry people take to the streets Ian
> Traynor, Europe editor The Guardian, Saturday 31 January 2009
> 
> France paralysed by a wave of strike action, the boulevards of Paris 
> resembling a debris-strewn battlefield. The Hungarian currency sinks to its
> lowest level ever against the euro, as the unemployment figure rises. Greek
> farmers block the road into Bulgaria in protest at low prices for their
> produce. New figures from the biggest bank in the Baltic show that the three
> post-Soviet states there face the biggest recessions in Europe.
> 
> It's a snapshot of a single day – yesterday – in a Europe sinking into the
> bleakest of times. But while the outlook may be dark in the big wealthy
> democracies of western Europe, it is in the young, poor, vulnerable states of
> central and eastern Europe that the trauma of crash, slump and meltdown looks
> graver.
> ...