5 July 2016
3 hours

Continuation Archief Hein van Wijk
Archive Box 1235. The cover states: Diverse stukken betreffende het leven van Bart de Ligt (1883-1938), Jannie Eriks (de vrouw van Van Wijk) en de Jongeren Vredes Actie.
Folder I, subfolder 1.

- “Bart de Ligt: Peacemaker”
Commemorative publication. Author: A.R. de Jong. No date [late 1938, early 1939]. Format: A4. 4 pages.
A warm and affectionate portrait by minister and peace activist Année Rinzes de Jong of a man, De Ligt, who died unnoticed on a train somewhere in France. “The public at large knew nothing of his death and little mention was made of it by important newspapers.” It couldn’t have gone any other way as De Ligt “was concerned too deeply with realities, he unmasked too nakedly the falsehoods of diplomacy and commerce, saw too clearly the meaning of war and war-preparation. But the few who know as he did that the problem of war is the key problem of this epoch know that Bart de Ligt will be recognized as one of the greatest spiritual leaders of our generation. […] Like a Moses of our day, Bart de Ligt never ceased to believe, as it were in spite of them, in the liberation of a people that preferred material security to deliverance from oppression and slavery. Even when he was not listened to, even when he was exiled and ignored, he remained faithful in their service, warning them, exhorting them, setting them the example of his own life: in this, as in all things, self-surrender to the power of inward conviction was his guiding star.” As to De Ligt’s non-violence, De Jong remarks: “He believed that struggle would always be necessary, but he believed also that effective struggle must be by other than violent means.[…] He owned much to Nietzsche, as he understood that true heroism lies in saying, in the face of adversity, hardship and resistance, Forward!, even when there appeared to be no forward.”

Collection On India
Archive Box 2.

- “Homage to Mahatma Gandhi”
Illustrated brochure. Publisher: Embassy of India, The Hague. Date: 1959. Format: A5. 16 pages.
Small commemorative brochure published in The Hague, with a charming portrait of Gandhi by Topolski on the cover and several photo portraits of Gandhi inside. 
The brochure contains three short articles, the first one by the former Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru (3 pages), the second by pacifist minister John Haynes Holmes (1 page) and the third by poet, politician and independence activist Sarojini Naidu (2 pages). The first two contributions are fairly run of the mill, whereas Naidu’s is both a brief, original evaluation of Gandhi’s legacy and a moving expression of grief.
- “Mrs Sarojini Naidu”
The Homage dates from 1959 but Naida’s contribution seems to have been written shortly after Gandhi’s death in 1948 – one day after his funeral, to be precise, which inspired her to write, “Mahatma Gandhi, whose frail body was committed to the flames yesterday, is not dead. Like Christ of old, on the third day he will rise again, in answer to the cry of his people and the call of the world for the continuance of his guidance, his love, his service, and inspiration. […] May the soul of my master, my leader, my father not rest in peace. Not in peace, my father, do not rest. Keep us to our pledge. Give us strength to fulfill our promise, your heirs, your descendants, your students, guardians of your dreams, fulfillers of India’s destiny.”

International Peace Bureau Collection
The collection consists of four large boxes.
Box 1 (1902-1941) contains minutes, announcements, newspaper clippings and organizational documents, mostly in French and German. Box 2 (1946-1948, 1951) consists of a large number of reports on the internal organization of the Peace Bureau and conflicts with employees. Box 3 (1962-1964) contains a large number of documents concerning the preparations for their 1964 conference on the World Peace Brigade. And Box 4 (1968-1969) consists mostly of documents related to the 1969 International Peace Bureau conference titled Military Defence Challenged.

Box 3, Folder III.

- ‘Different Concepts of Defence”
Carbon copy. Author: Johan Galtung. Date: 1964. Format: A4. 9 pages.
One of Galtung’s many articles on forms of non-military defense, this time intended as an introduction for a congress organized by the International Peace Bureau on non-military defense. The key question that he tries to answer is what a military or non-military defense force is supposed to defend. Is it the nation’s territory or is it it’s way of life, it’s cultural identity (it is the same question, by the way, that the Flemish proponents of a non-violent defense force – from the Peace News article that came up a couple of weeks ago – asked themselves in 1938, with a similar conclusion)? If it is territory, the defense will be military in nature. If it is life style, the society at large or ones cultural identity, a country might be more prone to be open to forms of non-violent defense. “Non-violent campaigns will probably gain in effectiveness if the difference between territorial and social defense can be made completely clear to those who are concerned. […] In other words, one should be aware of the fact that non-violence is a social type of defense and hence of a completely different nature than classical military defense, not only where the use of violence is concerned, but also in the entire conception as to what is the goal of the conflict and what is of less importance.”

Box 4, Folder I.
- “Military Defence Challenged: Towards a New Structure of National Defense – a Working Paper”
Original typescript with corrections in ink. Author: International Peace Bureau. Date: 1969. Format: A4. 78 pages.
This is the huge working paper for the 1969 conference Military Defense Challenged held in August 1969 in Gothenburg, Sweden. It is one of a multitude of documents published on this topic during the late sixties and early seventies and does not seem to differ much from the many similar type studies that we have covered over the past year. They all depart from the recognition that war in the late 20th century holds a potential for complete annihilation and is therefore a blunt instrument to protect a nation from external threats. As the authors remark, “the military defense system is challenged not only by pacifists, but also by ‘ordinary people’, politicians and scientists – and even by military leaders. And a rapidly growing number of people is looking into ways of non-violent defense.” 
The bulk of the paper consists of an overview of literature on the subject by Sharp, Galtung, Ebert and the other usual suspects.