The Peace Movement and the "Two Europes"

Abstract

D,'iscussing the American peace movement a while ago, a very distinguished European leader reportedly declared that he could not take it seriously: After all, he did not recognize the names of any of its leaders. Five hundred years after Luther proclaimed the priesthood of all believers, our Western elites apparently find it difficult to take democracy seriously enough to suppose that new political movements can arise without their approval and knowledge. The performance of many in the Western political elite in the face of the peace movement has been, in fact, incompetent, when not morally deplorable. Attributing to fellow citizens a maximum of ignorance and bad faith, and sometimes sheer cowardice, our elites have found no argument too crude, no innuendo too derogatory, in a desperate effort to avoid recognizing their own increasing delegitimation. Now that the first of the Euromissiles are arriving in Great Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Italy, now that the U.S. Congress has narrowly voted to proceed with the MX (designated "Peacekeeper," apparently in tribute to the Orwellian year, 1984), now that President Reagan has won a modicum of approval from the American public for having occupied Grenada, it has been suggested that the movement will subside.