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Vietnam, Northern Ireland, Cold War
In the 1950's
The Cold War ideology found its most brutal expression in the decade of slaughter in southeast Asia. This was the first war to be brought home to us every day by television - war as theatre. Many young people reacted violently to the ever-increasing US bombing. The Fellowship formed links with the Buddhist peace movement in Vietnam, many of whose members committed public suicide to draw attention to the situation. The Buddhist peace delegation in Paris (including Thich Nhat Hanh, author of international bestseller 'The Miracle of Mindfulness', a shortened version of which we have published with Hanh's permission) played an important role in facilitating the ultimate settlement of the conflict. Today, the Fellowship and the Buddhist Peace Fellowship have an affiliation (Wikipedia entry).
Closer to home, the human rights abuses and sectarian divisions in Northern Ireland came to national prominence in the 1970's. Many FOR members from Britain went to build links between the communities in a series of summer playschemes for the children of the estates. Others became permanent residents and worked, often secretly and at great personal risk, to mediate between the opposing paramilitaries.
Peace Camps and Pilgrimages
Bede Smith, Doreen Hudson-Tobin
and Ginnie Lander
The 1980's saw the arrival of US Cruise missiles at Greenham Common and Molesworth - part of a US strategy to make a nuclear war in Europe possible without threat to the US itself. The women's peace camp at Greenham is legendary, and signalled a growing awareness of the role of gender in peacemaking. Less well known is the camp at Molesworth, where a chapel of peace was built on the base and wheat was grown and sent tofamine-hit Ethiopia. During this campaign the FOR organised a peace pilgrimage by bicycle from Iona, the centre of a Christian peace witness, to Canterbury.
