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Magazine
Crusader from Philadelphia
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Dr. George Willoughby, who was awarded the Jamnalal Bajaj Annual Award 2002, tells V. GANGADHAR why he soldiers on in the cause of peace.
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Fighting for peace ... Dr. Willoughby receiving the award.
ALEXANDER the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon. History has always been quick to applaud men who fought wars. It hailed Winston Churchill who led Britain against Nazi Germany as the hero of the Second World War. More recently, George Bush's belligerent responses to the Twin Tower bombings and war-like attitude towards Iraq saw his popularity soar and enabled his Republican party to sweep the mid-term polls in the United States.
In today's bellicose U.S., where Might is Right, it is hard to visualise movement which believes that war and aggression do not solve any problems. But that is the philosophy of 87-year-old Dr. George Willoughby, a Quaker from Philadelphia and a staunch crusader for international peace.
Dr. Willoughby and his wife, Lillian, were in Mumbai recently to receive the prestigious Jamnalal Bajaj Annual award for propagating Gandhian ideals abroad. Dr. Willoughby's ideals are Jesus, Buddha, Gandhiji and the black Civil Rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King. His strong Quaker roots forbade him from practisinge violence and when the U.S. declared war against Japan in 1941, he resigned from the U.S. army. Since then, he had been fighting his battles against war and violence.
Preaching and practising pacifism was not easy since the U.S. was an active participant in the Cold War besides being involved in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. The testing and stockpiling of nuclear weapons by the Big Powers were other major worries.
How did pacifists like Dr. Willoughby propagate their views? "We organised prayer and public meetings at different cities," he explains. "Kept a peace vigil on the steps of the Washington Monument. I also sailed a small unarmed vessel to the site where the U.S. was conducting its atom bomb tests." Peace marches followed, one from San Francisco to Moscow in 1961 and, three years later, he marched from Peking to New Delhi in another padayatra. Dr. Willoughby's first visit to India in 1960 resulted in meetings with Jayaprakash Narayan and visits to Gandhi centres.
While the world fought wars, big and small, Dr Willoughby formed the Peace Brigade International in 1981. Volunteer teams were despatched to trouble spots in Latin America like Guatemala, El Salvador and Colombia where one military coup followed another. Within the U.S., Dr. Willoughby started the Upland Institute of Social Change, which taught, among other things, the strategy and practice of non-violence in a hostile environment with particular reference to Gandhiji's activities in South Africa and then against the British in India. Dr Willoughby is also associated with the Philadelphia Life Centre, which aimed at creating a caring community devoid of violence.
According to Dr. Willoughby the message of peace works even under the worst provocation. That is why his movement took the September 11 attacks in its stride. While the nation seethed with anger and thirsted for revenge, the peace crusader argued that violence would beget only further violence. Thousands joined him in a peace march at Washington whose message was that war solved no problems. Dr. Willoughby's peace movement, he admitted, had attracted ridicule, government anger and even arrests. But both he and Lillian are unfazed.
Lillian is more emotional and action-oriented. Along with other Quaker women, Lillian frequently organised peace rallies to Pentagon to fight their cause. A frail couple fighting the might of a super power and the frightening military-industrial complex that supports it. But the Willoughby couple feel their cause is just.
After receiving the award at the Mumbai function, Dr. Willoughby told the cheering audience, "We will fight to share the wealth of the world equally. We will fight to live in harmony and peace. We will form more and more international peace brigades to strengthen our cause, visit troubled and war-torn regions and spread the message that war and violence solved no problem."
What did the award mean to him? The Peaceman explained, "The award is recognition of efforts from thousands of people working towards the same goal. We are ordinary people doing this work and I hope the Peace Army will grow. It takes a long time to change people. Creative action is very slow, violent action very rapid. Even Gandhiji left his work unfinished, it is for others to carry on and establish a society without violence."
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