Next week the Peace News camp is pitching up in Oxfordshire (it seems you can’t be a political movement these days if you don’t have a camp). Everyone’s at it this summer, there’s more camping then blooming direct action. Obviously it’s great to be doing all this talking and getting on and networking. But shouldn’t it be resulting in a bit more activity? Are these really kind of festivals, but with less music and more feeling-good about ourselves? Sorry, these are really questions for another time altogether. Just thought I’d mention them. Anyway). I don’t know if it’s going to be the busiest camp in the world, but I’ll definitely be popping along for a day or so. The peace movement, you see, really really cheers me up.

What is it about them that I find so infectiously inspiring? I suppose that in a way they’re on the most profound campaign of all - because isn’t asking us to stop fighting each other kind of like asking us to change our natures altogether? Most campaigning is based on a profound optimism about humanity - the idea that we want to be better people, that we want to treat others better - but peace campaigning is jaw-dropping in its optimism. What, expect people to stop having wars? Ask world leaders to give up their guns and nukes and submarines? It is not entirely unlike asking a bunch of toddlers to hand over their water pistols - anyone who has watched siblings together for more than a few minutes knows that territorialism is in our nature, and that fighting is just the next step (after shouting) in defending our territory. I don’t like war. But I can’t imagine humanity giving it up.

But peace campaigners view it differently. Obviously they have varying points of view, you can’t just lump them altogether, there’s as much arguing over points of degree as in any political movement. But they tend to see war less as a byproduct of being human (which I’m ashamed to admit I do) and more as a byproduct of a corrupt capitalist system which moves human beings around like pawns and sees armies as little more than cannon fodder.

And they’ve got a point. The multi-billion dollar arms industry is operated largely for the benefit of a few very rich men. Wars are usually fought for political point-scoring, not out of a national desire for a good ruck. The
money and power arranging these things is daunting, and seems to be entirely divorced from any of the moral dilemmas that would face normal people. Take the Iraq war for example - what kind of person could start a war that would lead to the deaths of thousands and thousands of innocent Iraqis… for oil?

Who could do that? But that’s why the peace movement cheers me up. They’re optimistic that these people - these strange, above morality people - can be defeated, or bypassed. They really think we can live in a better, kinder world.

What optimism! What chutzpah! And that’s what makes them great people to spend a weekend with. Pack your tent…

Words: Bibi van der Zee. Bibi writes about the environment and published Rebel, Rebel: The Protestor's Handbook.