SINCE 1997, British planes have dropped bombs on Belgrade, Kosovo and Iraq.
Despite the smart technology behind the bombs, and claims by military planners that targets are chosen to minimise civilian deaths, the lives claimed have not been confined to military personnel.
But this is not a new phenomenon – and in a newly re-issued book, One Voice, by leading pacifist Vera Brittain the case for saying no to war is clearly laid out.
Brittain, who died in 1970, was the mother of leading Lib Dem Baroness Shirley Williams, who took time out on Tuesday from the general election campaign to speak at the launch of the book at Housman’s bookshop in King’s Cross, which her mother helped found in 1945.
She told the New Journal why her mother’s writings just before and during World War II – which she admitted she did not always agree with – are still relevant.
Her mother was banned from broadcasting on the BBC and from moving around the country because her views were seen to undermine the war effort.
Baroness Williams said: “By 1943 she was getting reports from Sweden about the effect of the changing strategies of the UK government.” British planes were no longer targeting solely military or industrial targets – they were trying to demoralise German civilians by bombing cities. Her use of this news meant she was further ostracised by her friends.”
Baroness Williams added: “Although I am not a pacifist, I have respect for pacifism and my mother’s work is as important today as it was when it was first published.”
Vera Brittain’s pacifist beliefs were formed when she worked as a nurse in World War I. As well as witnessing the horrific consequences of the fighting, she suffered the loss of her brother and her fiancé.
This inspired her 1933 book Testament of Youth, an autobiography based on her diaries during the war, and she joined the Peace Pledge Union in 1936.
The next two books, Humiliation With Honour and Seed of Chaos – now reissued in one volume as One Voice – outlined her pacifist beliefs and criticised the allies’ mass bombing of civilian areas.
Pictured: Baroness Williams with Peace Pledge Union archivist Bill Hetherington.
One Voice is published by Continuum at 9.99.