April 2010 – 35th Anniversary of the End to the U.S. War in Vietnam…

Hearts & Minds

Peace Center of Delaware County First-Friday Free Film Series – April 2, 7p.m., Hearts & Minds

Special Showing of the Classic Anti-War Documentary

April 2, 7 p.m. – Hearts & Minds (1974, 112 min., Rated R for war violence, language, and brief nudity), the restored version of the classic film about the U.S. war in Vietnam and 1974 Best Documentary Oscar winner will be shown on the large screen at the Peace Center of Delaware County, 1001 Old Sproul Road, in Springfield, Delaware County.

April 2010 marks the 35th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war. Directed by Peter Davis, using his own war footage, newsreels, presidential speeches and interviews with the likes of Robert Kennedy, Gen. William Westmoreland and Daniel Ellsberg, Hearts & Minds is about a time of war that defined a generation and an arrogant belief in the rightness of U.S. action around the world that reverberates throughout our times.

Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9-11, Sicko) credits Hearts & Minds with his becoming a film maker, saying that the film is “Required viewing for anyone who says, ‘I am an American.'”

The First-Friday free film showings at the Peace Center of Delaware County are cosponsored by the Brandywine Peace Community. Doors open for light refreshments at 6:30p.m.

The showing of Hearts & Minds will be followed by an an after-film discussion with Dr. Sophie Quinn-Judge, who was an medical aid worker in Vietnam during the war. Quinn-Judge is director of the Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture, and Society, and is just back from an extended visit to Vietnam.

The Peace Center of Delaware County is located within the Springfield Friends Meetinghouse, just off the corner of Old Marple and S. Sproul Roads, behind the Mr. Car Wash.

For directions or more information, visit www.delcopeacecenter.org or call 610-544-1818.

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April 2010 marks the 35th Anniversary of the end to the U.S. war in Vietnam. What are the lessons and legacy of America’s longest war?

Sunday, April 11, The Legacy of Vietnam Today

will be the topic of a speakers panel at the Brandywine Peace Community Monthly Potluck Supper and Program held at University Lutheran Church, 3637 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia, beginning at 4:30p.m.

People are asked to bring a main dish, salad, or dessert to share.

The speakers panel will feature:

* David McReynolds, renowned socialist-pacifist and presidential candidate, who co-authored the first analysis from the U.S. peace movement calling for unconditional U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. McReynolds was the national staff organizer at War Resisters League for 40 years and a leading strategist and organizer of the Vietnam-era anti-war movement. In 1966, at the height of the war, he traveled to Vietnam, meeting with dissident Buddhists, and then again in 1971. After the war, in 1981, he traveled to Vietnam and Cambodia.

* Dr. Sophie Quinn-Judge, who during the war was a medical aid worker in Vietnam, is now Associate Director of the Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture, and Society at Temple University. Just back from another extended visit to Vietnam and fluent in Vietnamese, Dr. Quinn-Judge has received international recognition for her scholarly work on Vietnam, including her highly-regarded book, Ho Chi Minh: The Missing Years (1919-1941).

* Peter Lems, American Friends Service Committee Advocacy Program for Afghanistan and Iraq, has traveled throughout the Middle East, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

For more information, call 610 -544-1818 or visit www.brandywinepeace.com

Campus Camp Wellstone is one of America’s most well respected student activism training groups, and trains students nationwide in mobilizing, messaging, stratigic planning, relationship building, grassroots lobbying, and the Wellstone philosophy of grassroots organizing.  On Saturday  the 24th and Sunday the 25th of April, Campus Camp Wellstone will be coming to Swarthmore to offer a free two-day activism training!

Participants in the training will receive a free practical education in everything from organizing events and campaigns to political advocacy, as well as a free Campus Camp Wellstone tee-shirt and a book on the Wellstone theory of grassroots and social organizing.

Seeing that so many Swarthmore alumni go on to careers in politics or other brands of activism, the skills provided by Campus Camp Wellstone are particularly valuable to Swarthmore students, both while at school and once beyond it.  Training such as this also provides a constructive venue in which members of the activist community and those wishing to become more involved in campus life can come together to learn more about each other and the different projects being undertaken by their fellow students.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Swarthmore students.  To register, send your name, email, phone number, and student ID number (so that we can have food at the training) to ecorby1@swarthmore.edu All food will be vegetarian, but if you have any further dietary restrictions please let us know in the email as well.

The training will be between 9:30am and 6:00pm on Saturday, and between 9:30am and 4:30pm on Sunday in the Hicks Mural Room.

The event is sponsored by SDS, SLAP, Earthlust, Young Democrats, the Sociology and Anthropology department, the Peace and Conflict Studies program, the President’s Office, and the Student Budget Committee.

For more information on Campus Camp Wellstone, go to http://www.wellstone.org/our-programs/campus-camp-wellstone

Islamic Studies Annual Lecture

Lisa Hajjar

Associate Professor of Law and Society

University of California, Santa Barbara

April 19

4:30 PM

Science Center 199

Lawyers are crucial and privileged interlocutors in efforts to challenge and end the US torture policy. Who are these lawyers representing torture victims of the “war on terror?” How has this work affected them politically and ideologically? What kinds of legal strategies and networking have resulted from the ongoing and collective lawyering on torture-related cases? What are the national and global ramifications of these ongoing legal struggles?

Co-Sponsored by the Political Science and Sociology and Anthropology Departments, and the Public Policy and Peace and Conflict Studies Programs

Hajjar .pdf flyer

Directions to Swarthmore College

“What is Palestine? A discourse analysis of Palestinian and Israeli Peace Activists”

Dr. Camelia Suleiman, Lecturer, Tri-College Arabic Program, Bryn Mawr College

Thursday, March 25

4:30 PM

Bond Hall

Where are the temporal and spatial borders of Palestine? Generally, to Israeli activists, Palestine occupies a very specific spatial-temporal locality: all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea prior to the year 1948, the year Israel became a state. Palestine after that year means to them the spatial dimension of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in other words, the remainder of historic Palestine from 1948-1967 (the year Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip). This is not as simple or as straightforward to Palestinian interviewees. Their relationship to Palestine biographically, historically, and experientially is much more complex, despite of the fact that their physical mobility is highly restricted. Further, activists from both groups locate the ‘self’ experientially in two critical moments in their biographies: birth and coming into adulthood. They generally link these moments to historic events taking place, and as formative of their later activism.

Sponsored by the Arabic section of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures

I was just visiting the Peace Collection website for some information and was inspired to create this quick blog post inviting you to visit the archives website.  The collection of peace movement organizations and individuals is really remarkable. What a fine resource to have right at our finger tips! Do you know what is IN the Peace Collection? Take a quick browse through the handy “Document Groups” page.  Here are a few of the items you will find:

Gene Sharp [8″ x 10″ black & white photograph]

Albert Einstein Institution Records (DG 220)

125 linear feet

Founded in 1983; dedicated to advancing the study and use of strategic nonviolent action in conflicts throughout the world; committed to the defense of freedom, democracy, and the reduction of political violence through the use of nonviolent action; principal founder, Dr. Gene Sharp.

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Jane Addams,1900 [4″ x 6.25″ sepia photograph; credit: Waters ]

Jane Addams Papers (DG 001)

130 linear feet

A world-famous social reformer; co-founded the first settlement house in America in 1889. Known as Hull-House, it reached thousands of Chicago-area immigrants through social activities and classes. Addams and her co-workers championed many causes on behalf of the urban poor, such as protection of immigrants, child labor laws, industrial safety, juvenile courts, and recognition of labor unions. As a feminist and pacifist, Addams was a leading figure in the movement for international peace. From 1915 through 1919, she served as chairman of the Woman’s Peace Party (U.S.) and the International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace. Both organizations were forerunners of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Addams was international president of WILPF from 1919 through 1929, and honorary international president from 1929 until her death in 1935. Jane Addams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.

photograph exhibit

photograghs online

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The Phoenix at sail [6.5″ x 4.5″ black & white photograph, cropped]

A Quaker Action Group Records [AQAG] (DG 074)

19.75 linear feet

Founded in Philadelphia (PA) in 1966 to apply nonviolent direct action as a witness against the war in Vietnam; not an official body of the Religious Society of Friends; in 1971 transformed into Movement for a New Society.

Bayard Rustin with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, India, 1949 (original includes other people) [7″x 5″sepia photograph, cropped; from box “Individuals: A-Z”]

Fellowship of Reconciliation Records [FOR] (DG 013)

171+ linear feet

Founded in 1915 by Christian pacifists; members are now drawn from many religious groups; seeks to apply principles of peace and social justice and nonviolent social change to issues such as disarmament, conscription, race relations, economic justice, and civil liberties. The FOR-USA is affiliated with the International Fellowship of Reconciliation.

National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund Records (DG 155)

8 linear feet

Founded in Ann Arbor (MI) in 1971 as the World Peace Tax Fund to provide a means whereby a taxpayer conscientiously opposed to any participation in war could have his or her income, estate, and gift tax payments spent for non-military purposes only; national office moved to Washington (DC) in 1975; name changed to National Council for a World Peace Tax Fund in 1975, to National Campaign for a World Peace Tax Fund in 1983, and to National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund in 1984 or 1985. Collection ncludes correspondence, office files, brochures, and newsletters. No finding aid available online.

tripod record

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Bayard Rustin & Evan Thomas at 13th Annual WRL Conference, 1942 [9.25″ x 6.5″ sepia photograph, cropped; credit: Sidney Moritz, New York (NY)]

War Resisters League Records (DG 040)

34+ linear feet

Established by Dr. Jessie Wallace Hughan, together with colleagues from the Women’s Peace Society and the Women’s Peace Union, as an rganization with similar goals to War Resisters’ International; seeks to end war and social injustice through pacifist and nonviolent tactics.

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Ron Kovac (Vietnam War veteran) protesting in front of Nixon headquarters, 1972 [3.5″ x 5″ color photograph, cropped]

Women Strike for Peace Records (DG 115)

32 linear feet

Begun in 1961 as a one-day protest against nuclear weapons, led by Dagmar Wilson, in Washington (DC); a nation-wide grass-roots organization most active during the Vietnam War, when it operated draft counseling and amnesty programs, and lobbied against the continuation of the war; has local chapters throughout the U.S.; national headquarters in Philadelphia (PA); legislative office and National Information Clearing House in Washington (DC); also known as WISP (Women’s International Strike for Peace) or Women for Peace; disbanded ca. 1989.

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Washington State Branch with No More War signs, Seattle (WA), Sept. 1922

[10″ x 8″ sepia photograph, cropped; larger size]

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (U.S.) Records [WILPF] (DG 043)

238+ linear feet

Established in January 1920, replacing the Woman’s Peace Party as the official arm of the WILPF in the United States; its aim was to “promote methods for the attainment of that peace between nations which is based on justice and good will and to cooperate with women from other countries who are working for the same ends”; an important leader in the peace movement of the 20th century, as well as in women’s issues; had a Legislative Office in Washington (DC) for many years; had/has many state and local branches established to carry out goals of the national program on a more local level; national office in Philadelphia (PA) closed in 2009; some activities currently being overseen from office in Connecticut (2010- ). Collection includes records from its predecessor organization, the Woman’s Peace Party, some files related to the International WILPF (especially reports of international congresses), the U.S. National records, and the files of the Jane Addams Peace Association [JAPA]. Available as well are photographs and/or negatives (several thousand), periodicals, posters, banners, scrapbooks, postcards, graphics, audiovisual material, campaign buttons, lapel ribbons and pins, bumperstickers and other stickers, and other memorabilia.

photograph exhibit